That’s true but think of all the amazing architecture around the world and the rich history. Our country is basically still in its infancy. We don’t have that here.
if you travel Europe, there are castles and windmills that are hundreds of years old. there are even ancient Roman ruins and statuary. the landscape is also quite magical. when i stayed in Sweden, i spent all day riding my bike through these tiny medieval neighborhoods, with small houses that looked straight out of a Christmas illustration. i felt like i was in fairy land. i have friends that have visited Ireland and tell me it is like that as well. i went to thrift store while i was there, and wanted so desperately to buy everything. there would be multiple mint condition vintage film cameras for under $10, piles of used Swedish and European vinyl, etc. we went to a rave. we went to a black metal festival. there was constantly amazing shit to do, and always a park within 15 minutes. Sweden rules.
Europe is great for folklore. there is so much stuff all over, so much culture. when i stayed in Sweden, i decided to go to Berlin and visit a friend who was staying over there and working for an artist. i ended up purchasing a round trip bus ticket and it was less than $50! that weekend i walked to the train station, took it over the water to Copenhagen, got on a bus, fell asleep,
woke up and found out i was on a boat. bought a steak and some champagne and smoked a cigarette because holy shit $50 buck for all this??? then the ship landed and we got back on the bus, drove down the Autobahn, finally ended up in Berlin. it was not as grey and cold as American media has always portrayed Germany to me. in fact it was very lush, very green. it reminded me of Athens, GA in some ways. we went to a thrift store, there were cardboard cutouts of Rambo and David Bowie. my friend took me to an old airfield, which had been converted into a public park, and was having a giant outdoor fleamarket. i ended up buying a German John Carpenter
Precinct 13 Soundtrack 12" there and some ice cream. fuck yeah Germany rules.
Egypt was kind of a dream come true. i went as part of an Art History class, my teacher was an Egyptologist. a badass female version of Indiana Jones, she had her own digs, she was dating this German archeologist who had an apartment in Cairo. on the last day we got pizza and listened to Edith Piaf on a victrola while gazing at the Nile River. i had fried brains as well. everything you see over there is as magical as you would believe, the Pyramids really are larger than life, and kind of spooky in many ways. Africa is so beautiful and the people were friendly and wonderful, even during the Bush era, they were mostly just trying to be nice to scam money out of us. tourism is a huge deal there of course, so they would just throw papyrus paintings and cheap musical instruments and other trinkets into your arms and start demanding money. they were very pushy! true hustlers! beautiful people tho, just chillin, smokin a hookah outside the coffee shop in the mornings. the trip started in Cairo, then we took a bus down the Nile, then got on a ship for a bit, then flew back to Cairo (that flight was the scariest of my life due to sand in the air causing interference). the bus we were on was trailed by a jeep with dudes that had AK-47s, and they were similarly guarding all the temples as well. you would walk up to a temple and some guy would be standing there with an AK and maybe a water bottle that he had trapped a scorpion in for a laugh. there were terrorists in the desert, radicals who would hijack tourists, these things happen, and this was their solution to security. we never felt unsafe tho, everyone was very friendly. often we saw wild dogs hanging around. my teacher had her own dig site at one village, so the bus stopped in the middle of the desert, we got out, saw some little kids running with donkeys, and she talked to an old man in Arabic, and he led us to this little cave. up close was quite cool, there were a few shields and guards, but for the most part you could look right up at the walls and see that everything was painting individually by a unique artist. we would see kids sleeping on the back of trucks on the way to/from the city of Cairo.
the pyramids are actually just a few miles away from the city, but the sand in the sky (pretty much all the time, not just during sand storms) clouds things, so there is a real life Fog Wall that makes the pyramids and sphinx still un-seeable from the city, for most of the time. the sphinx is amazing. on the outside of the great pyramid it is all rocky, and you climb up this ladder that goes up a shaft into the main chamber, the climb is very dusty. then you get to the top, and you are in a very square, straight room, with very sharp 90 degree walls, like they were cut with a machine, almost like you have entered a large elevator. as you enter you realize you voice is now causing long reverberations, and there is heavy echo to all sound in this chamber. on the floor is the red granite sarcophagus, an empty box, and you can lay there if you want! i did =) that was the first day! the next day we went to Cairo Museum, and at first we complained because, why go to a freakin' museum when we are here? yet it was a good stop and on the itinerary and packed full of stuff (not everything, as most of Europe looted/carted off parts of Egypt for their own museums ofc) but it was insane, just the most packed, almost like Hoarding. it was the most crammed museum, with amazing things everywhere. at the very top was the famous golden mask of King Tut. that was perhaps the most beautiful hand crafted work of art i have ever seen in my life. i was very moved by that tbh, and the whole presentation was laid out with his coffin and other funerary objects.i looked away and saw people looking down into his coffin, and realized i was practically at a funeral, one held over and over in that museum, and that in some strange way we were all there to see him and pay homage to his legend, eternally, thousands of years after his first funeral. that's kind of amazing. he had so much loot, the Egyptians were very keen on crafting objects and items to use in the afterworld, and would store equipment in tombs for later use. later we went to the Valley of the Kings, which had many different tombs, all cut into this mountain valley, and you would go down and it would get really really hot, and the walls and ceiling would be covered in art. then when you finally leave the tomb, the air hits you and it feels amazing. the most refreshing feeling ever. everywhere we went, there was original paint, preserved by the desert for thousands of years. totally dope shit. honestly i wish i had wasted more money on trinkets while i was there. for a while i had this Egyptian stringed instrument that sounded great on recordings. maybe some day i will make the trip back to Africa once again. Egypt rules. Africa rules.
