chutzpah: (n., yiddish): nerve; shamelessness: e.g., The chutzpah of that girl — not only did she take the book lying on the floor beside my bed [in the hostel,] but then she told us we couldn’t turn off the light at 11:30 to sleep a little before rising for our 4:00 a.m. cab because she was reading it.
in fact, she never returned it, and what makes it worse is it was a DIS library book. luckily i slipped it from them — a minor larcenous habit of mine and in this case a smart move because at least i won’t get continually fined.
if i had been coherent last night i’d have fought for the book and the darkness. andrea lacks the spleen for such battles. but, just as in my first night in barcelona, i exhibited a new tendency to get violently ill three bites into dinner (and over such lovely paella too). either i’m under stress and under-hydrated, or i’ve developed an allergy to food in the evening. either way, it’s not pleasant.
it took about 12 hours before the shaking,weakness,nausea mamboed out of my system, during which time i had to do the pre-dawn packing and transport thing. andrea nursed me, and at heather’s suggestion i nursed sugar water on the plane, which helped. i deboarded in copenhagen, securely stomached, but very much showing my having traveled Sloth Air (boots, untied, above white atheletic socks; green ill-fitting pajama pants; rumpled over-sized Bomb Them All t-shirt sticking out beneath clashing green hooded sweatshirt; and maniacally frizzy hair.) worst of all, i can neither shower nor sleep since our bags got misplaced in milan, and with mine my towel and my sheets. hopefully we’ll all be united in clean, deep slumber by this evening.