it's a magical world

Am back in the States. Wow. Three weeks traveling in Italy alone = best idea I've ever had in my life. Kind of exhausted now, but I have about 560 photos to upload (seriously), and maybe at some point I'll be able to make some sort of coherent post about all this. Maybe.

And now one day at the parents', and then Friday, I move to Washington DC, to start my new job on Monday. Onwards and upwards, my friends.

I also have a fair amount of fic to type up, although mostly not the fics I was planning to work on. *facepalm* Speaking of which, in a couple of days I'm going to be looking for a beta for a History Boys fic (no, I don't even KNOW, it just sort of happened), so if any of you are even vaguely aware of that fandom, heads up. That's the one fic I managed a complete draft of, though it'll get some revision in the transfer from notebook to laptop. I've also got some House fic in the works (Chase/Kutner, wtf, all andrealyn's fault) and am now about 3/4 finished with a Firefly multiverse crossover I'd been working on since Chicago. Plus fragments of other fics and the YA fantasy. Whew. Is good to be actively writing again, hopefully this will stick even though I'm no longer traveling.

Seriously, though, best trip ever.

So today one of my roommates in a hostel in Riomaggiore is a New Zealand girl. Got to talking about LotR (like you do), she mentioned that her cousin had a small part in those movies.

Her: "He was, like, the elf king, or something. You know, Cate Blanchett was the queen, and he was her king."

Me: "...your cousin is Marton Csokas?"

Her: "Wow, I can't believe you know who he is, no one's heard of him."

Me: "..."

I managed to refrain from informing her that, in fact, I knew several people who rather enjoyed writing stories featuring her cousin and his friends having kinky gay sex.

I love this vacation.

All of Italy is on strike today, apparently. By which I mean all trains, buses, boats, ferries, and what have you are not functioning. Getting from Monterosso to Florence is looking to be...interesting. I feel very "20 Hours In America"-ish, except, you know, in a foreign country.

Anyway, hi! Am in Italy, clearly. Is actually a great experience, except for the strike today. Will have many pictures to post when I return in two and a half weeks. For now, on to Florence! Eventually!

I've hit a hell of a snag in my solo travels around Tuscany: practically no reasonably-priced and reasonably GOOD hostels in the region offer dorm beds. They offer things like "4-bed private" rooms, which is very cheap for four people sharing that room, but if you're just one person, you have to pay for the ENTIRE ROOM -- the price listed times four.

I will have to pay a LOT more for a single bed in almost every area I wanted to visit. So, basically, I'm being penalized for having no friends. Nice.

I'm actually really upset about this, because suddenly it's financially prohibitive for me to stay in most of the towns I was excited about seeing.

ETA: I've made it work. I'm spending more than I'd like, or booking beds in hostels that are farther out of the way than I'd prefer, but them's the breaks.

After a morning's worth of internet research (between the brief interludes of answering phone calls), I've pretty much come to the conclusion that it's not actually possible for me to apply for theater jobs outside the US on a whim. This is not a particularly surprising observation, mind, but still. And I'm not quite in the position of leaping through all the hurdles involved in work visas or the like when I'm not entirely certain there will be work to be found, and I'm a little to pragmatic to up and relocate to London or Sydney or suchlike with no promise of gainful employment. So that's out for now.

I am starting to have a good think about the amount I've got saved up in my bank account, and how long I could manage to survive hopping from youth hostel to youth hostel across some as-yet-undetermined country/continent. Right now, I have assorted theater commitments in Chicago up until right around my 23rd birthday in mid-June. After that, a large swathe of nothingness. I'm wondering how I might fill that nothingness. I'm wondering what sort of birthday present I could give myself.

It's snowing again.