sorry guys!

I've been terribly remiss with posts & I apologize. But if you knew how topsy-turvy my life has been... Sexy Englishman & I broke up in May. It was absolutely devastating for the first two weeks, but I'm still here. It helped that I started dating the next day. Although lately it seems that he's been regretting his stupid decision. [Fingers crossed, everybody.] More importantly, I went to a 6-week theatre acting intensive and I learned so much. It was crazy! I haven't slept properly in about four months because first I was too busy dating & going out (oh so much partying), then insanely busy learning scenes. We all did at least 6 scenes in 5 weeks. It was so intense my photographic memory came back, probably in solidarity with the rest of me. Plus, I never thought I could do theatre besides musicals but now I want to try.

School was like therapy, boot camp and social awareness training all rolled into one. As an actor you can't be detached from your life - you have to go honestly with the truth of the moment. I had to stop distancing myself from what goes on around me. Which meant that I ended up crying almost every time I got up in class. It was worth it - I kind of knew I was sitting back, watching my life go by, but this smacked me in the face with that fact and stopped me. I also have a hard time allowing myself to express my feelings, because I'm afraid of how intense I can be, & I had to learn that it's ok to scream & throw shit & cry & do whatever short of physically hurting the other person. I found it incredibly difficult to stop controlling my emotions all the time, so I wasn't very good until my last scene. My partner & I were so good, the teacher just tweaked our scene a bit, let us do it again & said, "Thank you. That was fantastic. You've inspired me to greatness. Next!" No one in our classes had ever finished a scene that quickly. I was walking on air the rest of the day.

I'm working at Giant Multinational Corporation again for a while. It sucks because I desperately needed a rest after school but I had to start the Tuesday after it ended. Money is money though. Business at the dungeon is nearly nonexistent anyway, after the police closed two places. I'm going to try to update more often... wish me luck with auditions & boys!

Sharm el-Sheikh: 7.5/10

In the Economist I kept reading about the recent US - Middle Eastern summit about Iraq in Sharm & finally we were there ourselves. It's absolutely lovely. It was summer, though, & noticeably hotter than Cairo. Lonely Planet (LP) had led us to expect we'd be dying in 40°C (104°F) heat there but it wasn't actually that hot. Sharm, despite the Red Sea, was around that temperature & felt it. Going outside was like putting on a heated blanket. We'd step outside in as little clothing as possible & be like, "How far is it? 5 yards? Gah, too far!" Lying in the shade by the pool was only bearable with periodic dips in the water, it was that sizzling out. We had a nice shady room with plentiful air conditioning though. & a very very friendly cleaning man who is wasting his flower-arranging talents there.
This was waiting for us when we checked in. I happened to meet Mohammed later in my bikini, which seemed to make a big impression on him even though I was mostly behind our door. His arrangements became increasingly elaborate each day:He was extremely attentive during our stay, always asking me or Sexy Englishman how the other was & checking on me when I got lost once, but it definitively tipped over into creepiness when we checked out. We were doing last-minute packing. He came to say goodbye & ask for SE's address, cell phone number & then our picture. Really bizarre. Especially when he gave us his address as Housekeeping at Hilton Fayrouz. We did really enjoy our flowers though, & marveled at the feat of engineering which is the peacock at the end. The blue neck is a towel, artfully folded to stand up.

Our first night, Saturday, we were too hot to do anything except have dinner & go to sleep. We lounged by the pool in the morning while deciding on activities, & went quad driving in the desert later that night. It's so cool! They're little ATVs that go about 20 mph, which feels fast & exciting when you're bouncing over ruts & can hear & feel the engine revving. We had to go in single file but on the way out they let us go pretty fast. We stopped in a couple places to look at scenery & the only part I didn't like was when some teenage punks kept riding my tail on the way back. The asshole directly behind me actually bumped me once. I couldn't go any faster, since we had to follow the guide strictly & were kept in line by other guides on motorbikes. It was super fun - I'd love to just rent one & go explore by myself. We had dinner at Safsafa in the Na'ama Center mall complex (see LP for more info about most places I mention here) which was pretty good. That whole area of Na'ama Bay was hopping every night, even though it was the low season. It was nice to be able to walk around & see what was going on without getting in a cab. Although running the gauntlet of hawkers was a trial every time. Generally we just tried not to get drawn into conversation.

On Monday we did a snorkeling trip into Ras Mohammed, the national park protecting the reef. I can't believe how beautiful it is! The reefs starts just right there off the shore, barely a foot below the surface. We saw so many incredible creatures especially a lionfish, lots of colorful parrotfish, pikefish, etc. I got over my fear of snorkeling too. I used to be a swim champion & I've always panicked at breathing underwater. Just couldn't get used to it. This time the fish & coral distracted me, & once I got the hang of it I could let go of the blind panic & concentrate on looking around. Very happy about that. We snorkeled for hours, so much that I actually got the first sunburn of my life. I refused to believe that was what it was when SE pointed it out - I scoffed until I realized that it hurt & was red & generally exhibited the same characteristics as SE's frequent burns (he has classic fair English skin). We had so much fun we decided to SCUBA the next day. He has his PADI open water certification but hasn't done it in 5 years, & I'd never done it at all, so I just did a beginner dive from the boat & he came along to snorkel, opting out of the rather time-consuming refresher course. It's pretty cool. I had a hard time keeping the breather thing in my mouth & those tanks are awfully heavy but it's so cool to just swim right down to whatever's interesting & not have to come up for air after a minute like when snorkeling. I finally figured out how to equalize pressure in my head properly (hadn't quite got it the day before) & had a lovely time. Unfortunately I ended up with an ear infection later. When we woke up from our nap I noticed an earache. We started playing Scrabble waiting for the heat to lessen so we could have dinner, & the throbbing increased to metal spike level. I was whimpering & couldn't concentrate so we called the hotel doctor. He prescribed me nose drops, antibiotics & 2 types of ear drops for my "major ear infection." The drops, Advil & Excedrin made me feel ok enough to venture out for dinner.

We went to Da Franco (as LP suggested), close to the Hilton on the road by the beach, which was all right. The night before we went to Pomodoro at the Camel Hotel because it was the busiest restaurant on that strip but that didn't pan out either - it wasn't very good except for the potato leek soup. I could happily eat a gallon of that. We kept wanting to try Pacha Sharm but couldn't tell from outside if it'd be good, plus we figured it'd be the same as Pacha NYC with the overpriced, watered down drinks. & it's always more fun with a group of friends than just 2 of us anyway. Wednesday, our last full day, we met an American couple by the pool who were amazingly similar to us. They'd taken practically the same trip to South Africa before, they were from NYC, the list went on & on. We got along so well we made plans to hang out later. SE & I spent a lazy day between pool & a/c'd room, since I couldn't go in the ocean to protect my ear & SE was too hot. We had a few drinks with Cute American Couple at the Pirates Bar in the hotel & then wandered over to Na'ama Bay & settled on Fawanes for dinner. This was again courtesy of LP, but CAGirl & I were decidedly unamused by the cockroach that scuttled over our pita bread towards the end! The food was ok, not great - SE & I concluded that LP generally has a bias towards backpackers & their lean wallets, because their descriptions of most restaurants turned out to be exaggerated to us, coming from NYC & haute cuisine as we were. We soothed our feelings with a sheesha (water pipe) at Viva on the beach after the scary bug incident. CAC were really nice & hopefully next time we go out to Cali, where they just moved, we'll hang out with them again.

We had another cabbie incident on the way to the airport which was the final straw for SE. This one tried to tell us the fare was double - £100 - what the hotel said it was - £50 - & SE lost his temper. We had trouble getting to the right terminal what with our new-fangled e-tickets & me accused of being "China" again for about 5 minutes. I don't understand the problem, we saw a lot of American-Asian tourists, it can't be that weird to them. When we did at length get to the right place they were completely confounded by the e-tickets. We got them to accept that the tickets were real by showing them the itinerary SE had drawn up for us, although they would keep flipping to irrelevant pages over & over despite our attempts to keep them focused. "No, no, just this flight here, Sharm to Vienna to London - no we already did all this [first 6 pages], we're not going to South Africa." It turned out when we got to Austria that we didn't actually have e-tickets. They'd FedExed the paper tickets to Cairo for some unfathomable reason. We managed to get everything straightened out, luckily.

In Vienna I couldn't resist buying Chanel nail polish at duty free, since I hadn't found a salon in Sharm & wanted to look presentable for SE's friends. Sand, ocean & general traveling really take a lot out of paint. Most importantly, I picked up Harry Potter (& was probably the only person to pay full price that week - €30 = ~$40! Should have waited for the London price of £6.) I've been a fan since I read the first one, & if you haven't read it yet, you're in for a lot of crying. SE kept looking at my leaky eyes & trying not to laugh. In any case we made it safely to London in time for dinner.

Cape Town: 9.5/10

We flew Vic Falls to Jo'burg to Cape Town on Sunday. I'm not sure, but it seems that all flights in South Africa have to go through Jo'burg. Which is a pain, because it's a badly designed airport with horribly misleading signs. To get between terminals requires going through the parking garage. Even if they are on adjoining floors. The signs are useless; we frequently followed a sign one way only to get confused at the dead end & then catch sight of another saying to go back the way we came. This happened at least 3 times. Also, the South African Airways (SAA) people were particularly unhelpful. Every time we talked to them it looked like they were solving Mensa problems on their computers. They always needed help from their colleagues, too. The worst part was the look of absolute blank bewilderment we'd get in response to perfectly reasonable, comprehensible questions such as, "Can I put points on my Star Alliance [of which SAA is a member] card for this [SAA] flight?" They would say "Huh?!?!?!" as befuddledly as though SE had asked to recharge his banana in midair. This happened every time! & it wasn't because they didn't speak English - they do, very well. It was was almost as puzzling as frustrating.

Anyway, we managed to make it through to Cape Town. We'd heard lots of good things about it & it didn't disappoint. We stayed at the Extreme Hotel which is hands down the coolest hotel ever. It's affiliated with the Extreme Sports Channel, which they have playing all the time. The elevators & bathrooms are themed - for instance, one elevator is a shark-diving cage. Outside each room is a light that is red or blue to indicate "privacy" or not. The rooms themselves aren't very big but everything is fitted together in such a way that it doesn't seem small. The bed was huge & fluffy & there were UK & Australian charger plates right in the wall. There's a Bose clock radio in every room, free wireless internet, plus an outlet in the safe so you can charge laptops, phones etc. inside. Cabs waited outside & fares could be put on our room. The breakfast buffet was the best we had anywhere in Africa, the bar reminded us strongly of the Hudson Hotel in NYC, & all of this was for ~US$150 per night. Plus all the employees were super nice & helpful. We finally managed to stop swooning over every new awesome thing we noticed & go to dinner at Blues in Camps Bay, an upscale section of town. It wasn't as lively as we expected but we did arrive at 9 pm on an off-season Sunday. We got the recommended seafood-for-2 platter & it was so good. I've never liked non-fried calamari because I find it rubbery but this was amazingly tender in scrumptious sauce. We had some tiger & queen prawns, which would be called shrimp in America, as well as fish, lobster & crayfish. They should do seafood towers like that in the States. I don't much like oysters or mussels & they always put so many in a tower, it rarely makes sense for me to order one. & stuff from the raw bar is good but it's so nice to have it hot & flavored as well. Dipping things in sauce just isn't the same. Afterwards, we were too tired from struggling with airlines all day to enjoy the nightlife so we went to bed.

The next day, after careful consideration, we hired a driver to show us around Cape Town. We rode the cable car up Table Mountain, which is gorgeous. The Cape area is its own unique floral region, fynbos, because of the cold Benguela & warm Agulhas currents that collide there. The Indian & Atlantic Oceans also meet at Cape Point. There are about 6000 plants & some animals in the area that are found nowhere else in the world. The African penguins at Boulder Park are not as cute as the emperors down in Antarctica but they are still adorable.

It's bizarre to see them without a backdrop of snow or glaciers. We also went to the Cape of Good Hope & Cape Point Lighthouse. On our way back to the hotel we met some overfriendly baboons. One of them tried to open the doors of the car parked in front of us!

Our guide said they've even been known to break into houses looking for food. After our extensive day of sightseeing we checked out Long Street, which is a pretty hip & young crowd. We decided on Mama Africa where we tried ostrich, crocodile, kudu & springbok (we got the mixed grill, we're not piggies) for the first time & actually liked them very much. I think that may have had more to do with the excellence of the chef than the taste of the meat, though, since we'd tried some springbok biltong (jerky) in Kruger & hated it. Crocodile & ostrich taste like stronger-flavored chicken, while kudu & springbok remind me of beef. I also had a crazy drink called the Wagon Wheel or something. It was tequila & Tia Maria with a shot of Bailey's & some other creamy liqueur dumped in at the end. Kind of like a really alcoholic Irish car bomb, plus it was on fire. I was quite tipsy afterwards as you can imagine. We just went home though, because we had to get up early for shark diving!

Cape Town is known for its dive tours with great white sharks. We went on Great White Ecoventures with maybe 15 other people. They took us out to a boat from Gansbaai. I was nauseous half the time & the wetsuits were cold & clammy but it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. You just put on a goggle mask & get in the cage with a few other people & go underwater when the spotter yells out. The sharks swim right by & try to eat the bait, it's mind-blowing.

We saw about 8 separate sharks continuously for 2 hours which was very lucky, according to our captain, since it's quite common not to see any at all or just for 5 minutes. SE & I watched them until we were too cold. We should have stayed in a little longer though, because the biggest shark actually bit the cage! That was a fantastic end to our day. We rushed back to the hotel to get our bags & stressed out extremely trying to get to our flight on time. I thought superstitiously that we'd been so lucky all day that we couldn't miss it & I was right this time. We had to fly through Jo'burg again (5th time in a week!) & then took the overnight to Cairo.

Victoria Falls: 7/10

We flew Jo'burg to Victoria Falls on Friday morning, 7/13. Zimbabwe kind of looks like upstate New York with less trees & more monkeys. Sexy Englishman had us at the Hotel Mercure Rainbow, which turned out to be not bad. We wanted to do activities right away, but the earliest thing we could do was a sunset cruise on the Zambezi so we spent a couple hours relaxing & drinking by the pool. The boat ride turned out to be a booze cruise with hippos, crocodiles & elephants. Apparently elephants swim from the mainland to the little islands in the river quite often to forage. SE & I made friends with some English backpackers on the boat, who invited us to a bar later (as if we weren't drunk enough already). Fortunately we had electricity when we got back to the hotel - it had been turned off before. We decided, probably unwisely, to eat dinner at the bar, which of course we forgot to do. Upon venturing out into the town we promptly got lost despite being told directions. We wandered up & down the main street several times until we decided that a pitch-black road was where we should be; happily, my misgivings were proved wrong when we got to Shoestrings. It's an expat bar at a backpacker's hostel, filled with aid workers, student travelers & assorted other (mostly white) people. Lots of fun. We found some Americans there, pretty much the first we'd met in Africa, & over-indulged in $1 beer & $2 vodka tonics. They love US money in Zimbabwe. Sadly, their Zim dollars are pretty much toilet paper. We got Z$100,000 for US$1 on the street, & according to an Economist published while we there we could have got Z$250,000. The worst part of the hyper-inflation for the citizens is that President Mugabe insists on holding the exchange rate at Z$250:US$1. There's now a "farmer relief" accelerator of 60, so it's 15,000:1 but that's still completely divorced from reality. The funniest thing about the money is that it has a sell-by date. I have a Z$100,000 bill in my wallet that is no longer legal tender, as it expired on 7/31. Good job Mugabe, we all totally believe you're not running your poor starving country into the ground.

The next morning we had a helicopter ride & bungee jump scheduled. Poor SE was much the worse for wear, while I was perky & awake at a ridiculously early hour. (I don't get hangovers.) He managed to make it through the flight without throwing up, fortunately. The Falls are gorgeous. They're the biggest system in the world. Their very appropriate Makololo name is Mosi-oa-Tunya, the Smoke that Thunders. It's amazing how deep & winding a gorge the Zambezi has made for itself. The falls come off a flat plain & that's it, the land looks like a
giant was trying to carve something out. An interlocked series of Zs maybe.

After we got back from that I put SE to bed with some tlc. He's never sick, I'm always the one who needs looking after, so it was really nice to be able to take care of him for once. When he woke up he felt much better & was excited, instead of apprehensive, about the bungee. Well, less apprehensive. I was jumping up & down with anticipation. When we got to the Vic Falls Bridge between Zimbabwe & Zambia it turned out that we could do 2 other activities as well, a gorge swing & slide. Of course little miss Adrenaline Junkie wanted to do everything, so we got all suited up & strapped in - they are reassuringly safety-conscious there - & stepped off the bridge into 4 seconds of free-falling terror. Basically there's a rope running across the gorge with another rope looped around it - we were on the 2nd rope. Once you fall enough there's no more slack & you start swinging off the 1st rope. That's the fun part. The falling is actually quite horrible, especially since we literally stepped off the bridge & fell feet first for what seemed like days. It was so fast we couldn't even scream. After it was over & we weren't dead we felt exhilarated though. The slide was a bit lame, great view of the gorge, & then it was bungee time. Now I was scared & SE was excited. I had a vivid recollection of my stomach being around my ears from 10 minutes before & almost wasn't sure I wanted to do that again. Bungee is better, though, because you "fly" off the platform & can see where you're going instead of falling. It was amazing.

We had a calm, sober night at the hotel. Their lapa was quite good & so was the Ndebele dancing, not that I know much about it. They have some scary-ass costumes.

We played Scrabble later - my 2nd time ever - & I managed to beat SE. He's very good at it so I was well pleased with myself. We went to bed early so we could go to the actual Falls early before our flight on Sunday, since we hadn't actually seen them up close. They were really wet, even though it was the dry season, & quite overwhelming in their sheer volume. I got my fill of rainbows & we got photographic proof that someone has taken the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Or maybe that's just in Zimbabwe - someone has clearly taken their electricity & water as well. We were told it was "rationing" to help the farmers but we had our doubts.

Las Vegas: 10/10

Sexy Englishman & I are finally back from our world tour. It's been a month exactly - towards the end I really missed New York. We started off in Vegas for 3 days from July 4. This time was so much more fun than my January trip with Nice Lawyer. We stayed at the Wynn, which according to SE (this was his 6th time) is the best hotel on the Strip. It was definitely my favorite as well. The decor is a bit Art Deco/whimsical Arabian fantasy, which I liked, & the staff are unfailingly attentive. Even if we asked the wrong person a question they seemed happy to steer us in the right direction. I loved our giant king-size bed & very comfy sheets. Oddly, the bathroom was the twin of the one at the Four Seasons. I can't imagine why that would be.

The tables are my favorite as well - last time we gambled at several different hotels & the Wynn was the best, & I wasn't disappointed this time. The dealers (we played blackjack) are very cheerful, like they're actually having fun as well. We were up & down during the 3 days, at worst down $2000 & at best up about $500 but ended up more or less even. Not too shabby. It got us one night comped as well.

This time I had the pleasure of discovering how great food is in Vegas. We went to Picasso at the Bellagio, which was amazing. Every course of the larger tasting menu except the main was absolutely heaven. Our mains were quite good, just not up to the standard of the rest. & the dessert! SE enjoyed his molten chocolate cake so much he told me he had a new love in his life. It's a pricey place but worth it. Plus you get to watch the fountain show every 15 minutes or so, although I wouldn't advise going outside during the sumer heat. It was over 100°F while we were there, & even though it's not humid, walking farther than the pool is really unadvisable.

We played blackjack the rest of the night, with a break in the middle for a little pick-me-up. On the one hand I feel bad for the waitresses having to wear those incredibly skimpy outfits, but also I really enjoy watching them. It's too bad Lovely Blonde couldn't come with us as originally planned, she would have loved it. We managed to get up around noon the next day & did touristy stuff like the Shark Reef (smaller than I thought it'd be, but pretty cool) & the Insanity ride at Stratosphere. That was an interesting view but it was too hot out & I got a bit nauseous. We escaped back to the wonderful air conditioning at the Wynn for dinner at SW Steakhouse. We had a great waiter, & the food was very good, but not quite as transcendental as Picasso. Their house steak sauce isn't good, which I noticed at Cut - Wolfgang Puck's place in LA - as well. I wonder why that is. You'd think they would do that the best. More gambling after dinner, neither of us having much luck. We kind of considered going to Crazy Horse but decided that it would probably just be a more expensive version of Penthouse, & it's not as fun with only 2 people.

Our last day we went to a shooting gallery. A friend suggested one, though couldn't remember the name or address except the general location but we tracked it down. American Shooter's Gun Club, 3440 S. Arville, is a no-frills shop & shooting area with a very comprehensive range of weapons. They even had Sten guns from World War II! One thing they don't really show on TV is how ridiculously loud guns are. Even ear muffs don't help much. SE thought I was a bit too excited about the guns but indulged me... we started with a .22 which we both learned to aim reasonably well & then progressed to a .357 Magnum. There really is no civilian situation where one would need a gun that powerful. It jumps a foot when fired, which makes precise aiming fairly useless, & it rips enormous holes in things. The paper target presented very little obstacle - as bloodthirsty as I am, I shudder to imagine what it would do to a body. It was fun at first & then the noise, recoil & powder burns kind of got to me. I'm really glad I got to try shooting for the first time though. & We saw a great visual argument for gun control as we were leaving. A guy was showing off his new $20,000 machine gun to his friends. That thing could fire a ridiculous number of rounds per second. Makes you wonder what kind of deer he thinks he's hunting.

The gun shop told us we could call a cab there, but could also call from the bar across the street with the added benefit of drinks, so we did that. We waited... & waited... played 2 games of pool & waited some more... in the most all-American bar I've ever been in. It was pretty interesting how many people were there on a Friday afternoon. Finally after 2 hours we got picked up. Went to dinner at Daniel Boulud's Brasserie in the Wynn, an ironically tony end to a rather redneck day. It was also very good - I was glad I ordered the signature short ribs. We played a little more black jack until we were almost late for the red-eye back to NYC. I thought I'd miss the scantily-clad waitresses bringing free drinks & I was right.