it's already evening, there are people just roaming around. occasionally a train will go by but it doesn't stop. there's a general sense of not knowing what's going on. i mount a search for my camera, returning to the scene of the camera. i see an unguarded burmese bag on the floor, and out of curiosity, i stick my hand inside. my camera! amateur thief.
finally a train comes that actually stops. i'm not sure where it goes, but i have the feeling that all trains go to the same destination, so i climb on with some burmese and a few other foreign travelers. there are some americans, and some japanese. it's daytime again, and i admire the scenery outside, this sparse dusty landscape seemingly drawn in sepia tone.
we stop at a station in a more populated town with a few storefronts. the place doesn't look familiar, but it's been a while since i've been here. all the foreign travelers are getting off so assuming they know more than i do, i get off with them on a gamble.
i begin walking and soon see some familiar sights. that old restaurant i used to go to. the hotel where i stayed at. (all these places of course i've never seen before, but they seem familiar to my dream self). first thing i need to do is to find a place to stay. my old hotel seems to have gotten an upgrade, with pretty ladies waiting at the entrance to greet new arrivals. i decide to skip it, sensing it might be expensive. i wander around town some more. all i have is my cracked camera inside a small bag. it's night time again. i don't remember booking a room anywhere, but i have one now. the standard white sheet bed and a tv that might not work. i wonder what i'm going to do tomorrow.
that dream seemed to have all my traveling anxieties rolled up conveniently into one subconscious package: breaking my camera, being robbed, getting lost, not having a place to stay. not sure what it means. i think the burmese connection came from discovering there was a local burmese food festival happening yesterday that i didn't find out until it was too late.
i helped pau fix his bike this morning. he was having problems with it yesterday, but were ever already in boston by the time i found out. first, his seat needed to be adjusted (too much downward slope). second, he re-aligned his brake pads; his back brake wasn't even working yesterday. lastly, he needed to adjust his front derailleur, which was giving him just 7 speeds instead of the full range of 21. i got a chance to really take a look at the equipment, a trek 850 mountain bike. i was surprised to find it didn't have a single reflector (must've been stripped off at one point), and pau told me a car nearly hit him at an intersection last night when he came home. i also discovered the hard way not to stick my fingers into the spinning spokes to get the wheel to stop: it thwacked one of my fingernails leaving a bruise underneath the nail bed. after we were done pau took the bike on a test ride. everything worked except the middle gear got stuck again.
before i left for belmont, pau had his laptop steaming a live soccer match between barcelona and majorca. just like americans, sundays mean football for spaniards (just a different kind of football).
i made a quick stop at the watertown home depot to pick up some reflectors. i'm surprised they only have 2 color choices, red or blue. i don't think they're designed for bikes, more like property markers.
with new england not playing until tomorrow (monday) night, i really didn't have much to do. i went to my parents' room and fell asleep until dinnertime.
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i wore my motorcycle jacket tonight so my ride back home was properly insulated. i found pau with his german lady friend in the living room watching episodes of the big bang theory on his laptop. i retreated to my bedroom to watch new episodes of rubicon and mad men (kale! megan!). around 10:00 pau started making dinner. his friend left around midnight. we chatted a little bit about european soccer before calling it a night.