For those of you who are my friend on Facebook for more than a
year already, you might know
that I have spent more than one day in a
hospital whilst being on the road. Hospitals in Berlin seem to have a
thing for me and always invite me right at the moment I have no time
for them. But I've learned from the past, so I never go travelling
without a good health insurance anymore. You never know what's out
there, waiting to attack you. If it's not cystitis, it's a swarm of
tiger mosquitoes, or, in this case... a poisonous plant. Nature is
not fond of me.
So what happened exactly? About three weeks ago I woke up one
morning with my legs covered in little zits. Ah, another mosquito who
liked me a little too much, I thought. But the itch was unbearable,
and the bites turned to blisters really soon. When I ran into Veerle
at uni, it turned out that she had extremely itchy spots on her body
too. She'd asked her professor and it turned out to be: poison oak.
We probably got it during our hike in Big Sur, since we walked around
with legs uncovered and it can take a couple of weeks until the
poison oak rash starts to appear.
Since many of you probably don't know what this witch plant is -
neither did I - let me explain it shortly. Poison oak is a plant that
mainly grows close to the Pacific, so on the West Coast. It's similar
to Poison ivy, which grows on the East Coast, and it's a plant that
looks quite innocent but can do real harm. It's not deadly, nor
lasting, but it's damn enjoying. The plant contains an oily sap
called urushiol, that causes an allergic reaction and can stick to
your clothes, so that you might reinfect yourselves over and over
again. Pretty disgusting, yes!
After a couple of days I was convinced I had the same problem,
because the spots had turned really dark red and started to show up
on different parts of my body (luckily, not my face!). I made an
appointment with the doctor as well - thank god appointments are free
at university - and began another fun 10 days of antibiotics. Just
before we were gonna go to Vegas, the city of intoxication :)
I also received a cream, which I was allowed to use two times a
day. Not that much, if you die of itchiness all the time. When I had
my second appointment at the doctor, the first thing she said when
she looked at my legs, was: ''Oh my god!''. Thanks. She gave me
bandage to keep me from scratching and to help the cream to really
absorb. Very convenient in Vegas! But well, if my friend Nietzsche
taught me one thing this semester, it's that you have to say ''yes''
to life and live it to the fullest. So, Vegas it was!
Emma, Lavinia and I had booked the Greyhound bus a couple of
months before, and although I'd heard horror stories about this bus,
I was very excited to hop on. If there's one American ''on the road''
thing, it's the Greyhound! Billy Joel sings about it on his fabulous
''New York State of Mind'', Kerouac writes about it, and now I could
finally experience it too. Of course, there were some problems on the
way, we had to change buses and it took us a few hours more than
scheduled to arrive in Nevada. But we forgot about all of this the
minute we drove from the isolated desert into the craziest city in
the country: Viva Las Vegas!
Vegas is total madness. I can come up with many adjectives to
describe the city, but madness might cover them all. Everything is
based on the concept of making money, there's fast food everywhere,
bars, fat Americans, casinos, pools. I honestly think some young
Americans have thought they'd arrived in Europe the first time they
went to Vegas, since it's crazy how much effort they've put into
rebuilding the old European cities. Of course, the Eiffel Tower is
very fake, but when you enter the Venetian, your mind is blown.
They've created a small Venice in the middle of a shopping mall.
Though it was a sunny morning outside, you feel like the evening has
just started and the Italian restaurants are waiting to serve you.
Your entire idea of time and space seems an illusion!
We'd booked one of the most amazing hostels I've ever stayed in:
Hostel Cat. Really, if you're planning to book Vegas soon, DON'T book
a fancy hotel, because I can guarantee you that you're gonna have a
lot less fun. Hostel Cat knows what to do and where to go in Vegas (I
sound like a sales person, I know). The manager has been able to
sneak his guests into a pool party at the Monte Carlo for the last
five years or so. He asks five dollars for the ride and what you get
in return is access to a great pool, in the middle of the Strip, for
which people pay 300 dollars a night. And we only paid 16 a night!
About 30 people squeezed themselves into a small van, so everyone got
to know each other pretty soon. What an adventure.
Since it was Halloween during our Vegas weekend, the city's
craziness was doubled. My idea was to dress up as a scary fairy, so I
bought wings, a headband and a tutu at Goodwill (best store in
history) and I think I've never looked so pinkish before. No one
believed I was gonna end up being scary, but with the help of a Dutch
girl at the hostel, my face resembled the Joker's (or at least, I'd
like to think so) and we were ready to ramble!
Whoever thinks Vegas is expensive, is wrong. At least, if you're a
women, it's not. One of my friends gave me the contact details of a
promotor, who put us on the guestlist for every single party at the
big clubs in Vegas. Nicki Minaj, Steve Aoki, Tiësto, Hardwell,
Afrojack. Vegas sure loves Dutch artists. In the end, it turned out
to be a little less romantic than we thought, since the lines for the
parties were extremely long and it'd take us two hours to get in. So
what was the use of a guestlist, anyway?
Another problem was that we couldn't resist the temptation of
intoxication (it's Vegas, after all!), so we ended up dancing in
random bars with even more random people. I wrote about the Cara
comparison before, but in Vegas it was even worse. People coming over
to me and thinking they're the first ones mentioning it, people who
wanted to take a picture with me. Even with face paint on my face, it
couldn't be stopped. Ah well, I still take it as a compliment and
besides, I'd found a soulmate in the hostel. Ryan Gosling's twin
brother from Canada was there, so he knew what I was going through.
Tough life...
On our last day, we recovered from our hangover on the rooftop of
the Venetian, because, once again, women run the world in Vegas.
Feminists might not enjoy the idea of girls being objectified, but I
didn't mind that much. We deserve to be honoured, girls! So keep
those party tickets and drinks coming :) The entrance to the pool
also turned out to be free and they had an open bar! On top of that,
it was 30 degrees and there was music. What else to wish for? A
couple hours later, we were smashed back to reality. A 16-hour bus
ride with shitty chairs, so sleeping was not an option either. The
airco was too strong as well, so my body suffered quite a lot.
And so did my poison oak rash. Back in San Francisco, it seemed to
get only worse, so that afternoon I went back to the doctor and
accepted what I'd refused a week before: a prednisone cure. I didn't
know that much about these medicines before, but I knew that they
have many side effects and make you very vulnerable to any small
sickness. In other words, poison to your body. But I really wanted to
get rid of this rash, so I agreed with 20 days of prednisone. The
funny thing is that they have the same effect as drugs in the
beginning, so you feel very active and high. I didn't experience that
much difference, but when I went running, it felt like I was flying.
My own private doping experience!
At the moment, the spots have turned purple and the itch is almost
gone. I will beat this plant, that's for sure. But Europeans amongst
us, beware. There are some nasty plants out there in nature. As for
me, I'm gonna stay in the city for a while. I wished our Vegas trip
had lasted a little longer, but then again, a week might've been too
much. The overload of capitalism would've killed me. I didn't gamble
a lot by the way, since I was too intimidated by all those stern
looking Asians. I was also slightly disappointed by the casinos, they
seemed a lot more impressive on tv (in the great show ''Las Vegas''
for instance). In reality, it's mostly gamble machines, where sad and
lonely people drink their beers and smoke their cigarettes in the
hope of becoming rich one day.
So, unfortunately I didn't come back to San Francisco as a
millionaire. I still have to pay attention to the costs of my
groceries and drinks, but I've gotten pretty good at finding free
events, so that's not a problem at all! I visited a free concert at
Brick & Mortar in the Mission a couple days ago, I went to a cool
Couchsurfing event yesterday and tonight is another First Fridays
event in Oakland. So much to do, so little time. But I'm doing my
best to stop thinking about the little time that's left and enjoy the
States while I'm still here. On the side, I also have to write big
essays, but since one of my topics is on Jim Morrison &
Nietzsche, I don't mind that much. As Morrison said: ''No eternal
reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn''. Live your life to
the fullest.
