Joshua Zamrycki's Weblog

Well, I've been back home in Barcelona for two weeks now. That means that it's time to set off on another international adventure!

Tomorrow morning, Jan and I fly to Wales to perform The Treasure of the Puta Madre (the show we brought to Edinburgh this summer) at the Swansea Fringe Festival. I've never been to Wales before! Just trying to imagine what the country will be like boggles my already twisted mind. I imagine a desolate land with chalky grey rolling hills topped with little toupees of green shrubbery; wide-eyed yet bland citizens with pale complexions; strange salty smells; and colors having nothing to do with either blue or green that my eyes have never seen before. Of course, this is all conjecture. I'll report my findings upon my safe return early next week.

Posted by Joshua Zamrycki at 1:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I finally got around to sorting out some of my wedding photos! You can see them and share in our joy by checking out my Flickr Photostream. I wish I had more photos of that wonderful day, but very few people have sent me the photos they took (hint, hint!!).

I've had this Flickr account for about a year now and only four people had left comments after viewing my photos. Imagine my surprise when, only one minute after uploading it, someone left a new comment beside a certain photo of my sister Rebecca. I hope this is a new trend (the comment thing, not the Rebecca thing).

It didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would to upload all those new photos so I'm quite encouraged to get more photos up there soon. Next will be some shots of the Edinburgh Fringe and our honeymoon in Greece. I'll let you know when they're ready for viewing.

Posted by Joshua Zamrycki at 5:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I have prioritized the important aspects of my life and they are as follows:

1. make Jan happy
2. create exciting new theatre
3. have fun while improving my volleyball skills
4. explore and help create the world of computers
5. improve my swing dancing abilities
6. refine my Spanish and learn Catalan

Posted by Joshua Zamrycki at 7:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday was a lovely day. And so full of fun things to do!

It started rather late since Jan and I had arrived home at about 4am the night before thanks to American Jan's birthday party - which was fun. It was our chance to finally catch up with many of our friends whom we hadn't seen since before the Greek Honeymoon, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and wedding in July. Boy, we've been busy. And we danced. Mostly when Am-Jan commanded us to dance, but we enjoyed it anyway.

So we woke up sometime after noon and met up with a couple of Jan's friends from Brighton who were visiting Barcelona for the week. Claire and Damian are the director, writer, and co founders of Periplum - a magical theatre company specializing in outdoor visual extravaganzas. Anyway, this being the week of the Barcelona Mercè Festival, we met up in Plaza Sant Jaume to see the fabulous castellers climb to the sky. Though watching them successfully build an eight story human tower is no doubt impressive, my morbid fascination for the failed attempts kept me watching every grope and tug so as not to miss any human devastation. I was not to be let down. Look out for some beautiful pictures of the event in my Flickr stream.

Come to think of it, I really need to spend an entire day sorting out all my wedding and honeymoon photos. I hope I get those online sometime in the next week. Watch this space.

After the castellers, we all headed up to Parc Guell where we met Juls and her two year old son Charlie. We wandered around the park, listened to some nice jazz under a cavernous Gaudi bridge, counted the stairs to the tippety top of the park (in English, Spanish, Catalan, French, Italian, and Japanese), and took in the breathtaking view of the city while being lightly rained upon. The aforementioned rain caused us to cut our visit short so we bid a fond farewell to Juls and Charlie and the four of us headed back to our place.

The rain didn't stop. In fact, a storm was brewing. Jan cooked a lovely vegetable curry and we sat out on the terrace and watched the amazing lightning hit the Earth for about an hour before we headed inside. With the cold black sky being pierced by ever stronger bolts of insolent white lightning, we had no choice but to put on a scary movie. I turned off all the lights and popped The Others into the DVD player and we curled up in the living room. Jan and I had seen the film once before, but Claire and Damian hadn't. It's kinda like the Sixth Sense in that watching it a second time allows you to catch all of the hidden clues you no doubt missed the first time through. And we all jumped at the scary bits. What a great film. The story, acting, music, direction, and cinematography are all first class. And the lightning outside always seemed to choose the spookiest parts of the film to flash through the window. Thanks, lightning.

Posted by Joshua Zamrycki at 8:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I get home from Greece super-late Thursday night, go to update my web log, find that my web site has disappeared, and, like the other 500 or so steady readers of this blog, proceed to thoroughly freak out.

After a quick WHOIS query, I discovered that my domain had expired three days earlier. Odd. It was set to automatically renew itself every year. So I emailed my web host - the renowned only2dollars.com. I didn't expect to hear from them for another week since that is what happened the last time I had to write them with a problem (whaddaya expect for only $2?). But they got back to me in only a few hours and kindly pointed out that my credit card had expired. I quickly updated my personal details for them and crossed my fingers - "Please don't have deleted all my files. OH SWEET JESUS, PLEASE!!!"

Since you're reading this entry on the same beautiful web site that you have all come to know and love, I guess you can figure out how the whole thing ended. Thank heavens.

Moral of the story: back up your files!

While I go and back up all my wedding and honeymoon photos, why don't you *click* on that cute little hamster provided by Jared Purrington:

Posted by Joshua Zamrycki at 4:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'd better get to bed soon - our plane leaves for Athens in just under nine hours. I've pretty much packed. I think.

I've spent the last two days reading the Lonely Planet guide to the Greek Islands (thanks Ray & Viky!). They recommend watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Zorba The Greek (among others) before you go on a trip to Greece. So I immediately downloaded them and Jan and I watched them both. I had already seen MBFGW, but that didn't stop my from crying through half of it. Maybe it was the 'just got married' thing or the 'this is my fu*ked up Eastern European family' thing. Either way, I like the film. I had never seen Zorba before but I had certainly heard of it. I knew it had won a few Oscars so I was really looking forward to it. In the end, I thought it was OK. Anthony Quinn was wonderful but the story lost the plot a few times and I think it was about a half an hour too long. There were a couple bits that really took my by surprise. I couldn't tell if it was an accurate depiction of Greek life or if it went over the top and was stereotyping. I'd still recommend it.

Deciding to fly by the seat of our pants, we still don't know where we're going. All we know is that we fly into Athens and we want to spend most of our trip Island hopping around the Cyclades Islands. Naxos and Santorini are two definite stops but we have no idea when or how. All I know is that the sheer cliffs of Santorini's volcanic caldera and the black volcanic sand of its beaches are among the most spectacular sites in Greece. And the main reason we're headed to Naxos is because I stumbled across the web page for this hotel.

At first glance, the Prokopis Hotel looks simply charming. And when you find out that it only costs 15€ per person per night, it becomes Mecca. We are now on a pilgrimage. Add to this the fact that the owner, Vaggelis Kavuras, sounds like the nicest person you'd ever want to meet. You have to read this email he sent me using a thick Greek accent:

Hi again Mr Joshua

Thanks for your nice mail to me and to my hotel !
Ok when you will know when you will choice when you will come to Naxos
send
me mail or phone to me to tell me your arrival time here and I will
come to
the port with my bus to transfer you in my hotel
I wait to see you in few days

Vaggelis also said that we could rent a moped for about 9€ a day to explore the entire island. I can totally see Jan driving one of those little buggers with a huge helmet on her head and me clinging for dear life on the back. We want to see as many Greek islands as we can but, with so many beaches to explore on this island alone, it looks like we may be stuck on Naxos for quite a while.

Posted by Joshua Zamrycki at 2:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

"Slow and steady wins the race" was never more true than when you're writing a gagillion Thank You notes. Yes, that's right - a gagillion.

With only two weeks between Scotland and Greece, and Nana and Aunt Amy dropping 'subtle' hints, the clock was ticking. But I am happy to say that, with a whopping 36 hours to spare, Jan and I have completed this daunting task and will be posting the aforementioned notes in the morning. We can all release a great sigh of relief... *sigh*

But seriously, so many people were so utterly amazing at our wedding that writing little notes to them was the very least we could do. Having all those wonderful people attend our special day and receiving so many thoughtful gifts was really heart warming. If my hand wasn't painfully cramped into a tight little fist right now, I would write each and every one of you a lovely little sonnet. But I can't use my right hand at the moment. A gagillion, I say!

Posted by Joshua Zamrycki at 12:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Oh my god, I can't stop myself! We haven't even left for Greece yet and I've already bought our plane tickets for the holiday season. Somebody stop me! Jan and I will be spending Christmas 2005 at her parents' house in Cambridgeshire and then we head down to Brighton for New Years with her friends. I would have bought tickets to the US to celebrate Chanukah with my family, but our favorite Festival of Lights falls between Christmas and New Years this year and Jan's work schedule is too complicated to combine England with the US this December. The only thing left to decide is whether we go skiing in the Alps before or after our trip to England. Sucks to be me.

Posted by Joshua Zamrycki at 3:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's official! At this time next week I'm gonna be eating souvlaki and moussaka, drinking ouzo, smashing plates, praying to Zeus, listening to Yanni, and growing my chest hair. You guessed it - we're off to Japan... I mean Greece!

After hours upon hours of scouring the vast wasteland of the internet for a cheap flight, I finally found a decent deal. 665€ for the two of us - round trip on Alitalia from Barcelona to Athens (via Milan). Don't bother calling us from next Tuesday till the following Thursday (Sept 13-22) - we'll be in Greece! This honey of a deal was found on Opodo while the same exact flight cost about 30% more on Alitalia's own website. Go figure.

It's now 3:42am and I have to wake up at 8:30 to go to work at the dubbing studio in La Garriga. I've done this 'staying up too late' thing for the past three days - I don't know what's wrong with me. I have a funny feeling that it's gonna catch up to me tomorrow. Besides my back, shoulders and arms killing me from tonight's first volleyball practice, I can feel my brain slowly melting from sleep deprivation. Maybe I'll sleep till noon on Thursday.

Posted by Joshua Zamrycki at 1:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

We've got two weeks off of work, a very bad case of wander-lust, and a long overdue honeymoon to enjoy. Looks like we're off to the Greek Islands!

Step 1: Jan and I leisurely strolled around the neighborhood today looking for travel agents who might have some jaw-dropping deals seeing as how the high travel season just ended. There weren't many offers available but we soon realized that, instead of a package deal, we would much rather buy a round trip plane ticket and fly by the seat of our pants once we get there. Arrive in Athens - choose an amazing little island and hop on a ferry - repeat.

Step 2: I made the normal rounds looking for cheap flights on the internet. After hitting the standard 10 or 12 European carriers, I found the best deals with Alitalia, Air France, and CzechAirlines. Can I recommend eDreams? I'll probably book the flight tomorrow after I talk with the little woman.

Step 3: Research, research, research. I found a great little site called Greece-Travel where this ex-pat named Matt Barrett can tell you personal stories about why each little nook and cranny of Greece is special. I'll probably pick up a Lonely Planet book tomorrow and map out a few itineraries. So exciting! I've never been further east than Venice!

Posted by Joshua Zamrycki at 4:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The president of the Vall d'Hebron volleyball club - the largest volleyball club in all of Spain and the club with whom I have played for the past four years - called me the other day to see if I was interested in returning to the team this year. I didn't know what to say.

I love playing volleyball, being forced to work out on a regular basis, and hanging out with the guys on the team, but the matches are on the weekends and they sometimes clash with rehearsals for the plays that I direct with my theatre company. Since I'm the boss, I can usually juggle the rehearsal schedule, but I inevitably have to miss a few games.

Over the years, I have proven my ability to be on the starting roster for the team but, because I have had to miss some high profile matches, I have also earned the reputation of being someone who can't always be counted on when game time rolls around. I don't want to mess them around, but I don't want to give up either of these things either.

So I told the president that I would be there this Tuesday night for the first meeting of the year / first practice / try-outs. I'm pretty much guaranteed a spot on the team if I want it. I figure I'll start with the team as usual and, if anything huge pops up in the theatre world, I'll tell the team right away and then continue to train with them during the week but not play on the weekends. That would be easier than telling them "no" now and then maybe trying to get back on the team later.

I quickly realized that I hadn't participated in any serious physical activity since the end of the last season in May. I think I actually heard my muscles atrophying while I was in Edinburgh. So, when Jan woke me up at noon today to tell me that she was going to the gym, I jumped up and told her that I'd join her. I don't have a membership to her gym, but when I asked the girl at the front desk if I could pretty-please just work out with the machines for an hour, her heart melted and let me sneak in without paying the 9€ single-day fee.

The gym was packed full of people. While I was on the "Lat Pulldown" machine, I started to think how cool it would be if there was a gym that generated all of its needed power from generators attached to all of the exercise equipment. Wouldn't that rock? Exercise bikes, stair masters, rowing machines, bench presses, and lat pulldowns powering lights, televisions, fans, and drink machines. I was so excited with this stroke of genius that I Googled the idea when I got home in preparation for my patent application. Wouldn't you know it... someone beat me to it. Someone else actually pointed out that "having a gym of say 40 Olympians all pedaling at top efficiency for a full hour would yield a revenue stream of less than $1." I was dumbfounded. I was also doing too many lat pulldowns with too much weight. I'm gonna be sore tomorrow night!

Posted by Joshua Zamrycki at 2:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night, after a pleasant evening of baking banana bread, Mystic River, and guacamole, I sat down in front of my computer to catch up on the day's events from some of my favorite internet sites. I have been keeping a close watch on the happenings in New Orleans (as I'm sure the rest of the world is, as well). Up until yesterday, I was under the impression that Katrina was the cause of this entire disaster. Now I see that the government is the real disaster.

Reading all of the late breaking news (NOT from the spin doctors) brings a tear to my eye. America is seriously fu*ked up. The Red Cross has been ordered to stay out of New Orleans. Critical firefighting equipment is being left untouched. Chicago's offer of manpower and equipment is "snubbed" by FEMA, according to the Mayor. FEMA "forgets" to tell the military to airdrop food and water to the survivors. Northern Command has been ready for days, just waiting for the President to give the orders. Feds delayed paperwork giving permission for National Guard to act. Louisiana begged for federal help on Sunday in a formal request, but the Bush administration says they didn't know anything about problems until Wednesday. Meanwhile, reporters apparently grow weary of the spin doctors.

Jan found a scary article explaining how US authorities had refused to evacuate British families trapped in New Orleans.

David Aaronovitch of the London Times observes, "It isn't the failure to act in New Orleans that is the story here, it's the sheer, uninsured, uncared for, self-disenfranchised scale of the poverty that lies revealed. It looks like a scene from the Third World because that's the truth. It's a quiet disaster that's been going on for years."

I wanted to write this entry last night, but I decided to first sit down in front of the TV and watch some Fox News to feed my ire. I was asleep withing 10 minutes.

The view of America from abroad is not pretty. Many countries have offered aid, but the official response goes something like: "thanks but we don't need help with this internal matter".

Jan's parents tell us that the news coverage in Britain is overwhelmingly anti-Bush.

Sweden is offering help with water purification and temporary housing (two areas where Sweden has special expertise in disaster relief.) The response: "Vi har inte fått någon signal från USA om vad man konkret är i behov av." - We haven't received any indication of what the concrete needs are.

A German blogger says, "Most people here in Germany are stunned that the richest and most powerful country on earth is so slow and incompetent to save it's own citizens."

Pathetic.

Posted by Joshua Zamrycki at 4:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I was just working on my round-up of all the shows I saw this past month at the Fringe. While I was writing about a show called Thrillseeking (probably the worst show I saw all month), I was floored when I realized that Winamp had 'randomly' started playing Thrillseeker by The Divine Comedy. Spooky. These things don't just happen...

Posted by Joshua Zamrycki at 2:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today, as part of my sister Rebecca's crap day, the news hit me that Oreo, that 15 year-old cluster of feline fur, has passed away. Oreo was a loyal, beautiful, incredibly stupid, and caring cat. She moved down to Florida with Rebecca who gave her hair cuts, painted her feet pink and blue, dressed her in fancy clothes and posed her for glamor photo shoots. Back when I was in high school, my cat Dude gave birth to Oreo and Dusty on my pillow, next to my head, while I slept. I distinctly remember the smell of the birth waking me up. Oreo will be missed.

Posted by Joshua Zamrycki at 5:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)