askandanswer | (no subject)

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[ Hey, check it out, a second person chain-smoking all over the podium. Nate kind of looks like he needs it, though. He's got one arm tucked tightly against his chest and the elbow of the other resting on top of it, so the cigarette doesn't have to get very far from his mouth. And he's not real big on eye contact right now, though to be fair, impromptu public speaking in a piazza full of masked hooded figures can do that, plus: hangover sunglasses. ]

Looking for some vacation suggestions. Needs to be not on the North or South American continent, should either be a densely populated city or somewhere difficult to access. Like a seafaring cult cruise ship. But not... a seafaring cult cruise ship.

[ Excuse him while he million-mile-stares into the distance. ]

I don't think I'd like that.

[ Another moment of hollow-eyed contemplation of the air. ]

Also I need to leave like, now.

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[ how not okay are you right now, buddy. some mild concern, but it stays at only mild so far. ]

Neapoli, in Greece. Or somewhere in the Faroes, if you really want remote and difficult to access. South Africa has a few places like that, too, like Tristan da Cunha. Svalbard, in Norway.

[ she always has a list of places to escape to at the drop of a hat. ]

[ Maybe she can see the gratitude through the lenses. His face isn't super expressive. Useful answers, right away, my god, 4 stars yelp review nobody ruin it. ]

How's, uh, the language situations for those? The only language I can really handle other than English is German, which.

[ Desultory gesture with his cigarette, acknowledging its uselessness in the aforementioned locations. ]

Ummm. [ she has to think about this. usually she just wings it wherever she goes. ]

You'd probably be fucked in Neapoli; it's not one of the big tourist-y places. Everybody in South Africa speaks English, as far as I know. Most of the Scandinavian places like the Faroes speak English, but I dunno about written stuff.

FYI, if you robbed a bank, all of these places have extradition treaties. Morocco, Bosnia, and Cyprus are better, in that case. But Cyprus is full of rich morons.

[ she does not really think or care whether or not he robbed a bank, it's flippant. ]

Edited 2014-09-22 13:47 (UTC)

[ It gets him to crack a smile. Not a great one. Something a little stronger than self-deprecation. ]

And Cyprus would be expensive, wouldn't it. I'd probably end up wishing I had robbed a bank.

What about... [ He bites the inside of his lip for a second. ] Sorry, I don't mean to treat you like wikipedia. I haven't done much traveling.

Nah, man, it's okay. I've done a little — wandering around, put it that way, but I don't get to go anywhere these days. May as well put what I know to good use.

Where'd you have in mind?

Thanks. No offense to the internet but you're a heck of a lot more reassuring.

I was wondering about the Tristan da Cunha place you mentioned.

They say it's the most remote archipelago in the world. It's tiny, though — population in the 200s or 300s, don't recall which. If that's too countrified, Saint Helena is nearby, and almost as remote, but it's more of a small city. They'd probably have better accommodation for strangers.

Mild tropical climate. Not too inhospitable. Both places have internet, functioning societies, don't get me wrong, it ain't even close to roughing it, but you do have to get there by ship. They don't have airports.

I liked the sound of both, honestly.

Yeah, it sounds. It sounds good.

[ So that's the voice of someone trying not to be relieved because he's afraid it would be premature, or jinx it. ]

Saint Helena... that'd be Constantine's mother, right?

Oh, yeah, I think that's right. Patron saint of archaeologists and, uhh, difficult marriages? Which is a hell of a spectrum. I dunno the details, I'm not Christian.

Me neither. Until you said archaeologists and difficult marriages I was getting hopeful about it being a "sign."

[ Dry, vocal-only quotation marks there. ]

( well that's slightly suspicious, but watch it fly entirely over their head — )

I was very fond of Izmir.

Is that... in the Balkans?

[ Check out his shaky grasp of geography instead. ]

What do you like about it?

Turkey.

It's by the sea — the weather is so nice. Ehm... is pretty tourist-y. Crowded. Safe, for foreigners anyway.

That does sound nice.

[ Sort of weak praise there, and he presses that arm harder against his ribs. Nice things... are bad? In Nate's bizarro world? ]

Is that, um — what you said about it being safe, for foreigners. Are there problems going on for people who live there?

Mm, no, not really, just, ehhh — I don't know, people talk about how unsafe it is to travel alone, but ehm, pickpockets and muggers, they leave foreigners alone mostly.

Oh. Yeah. That kind of thing. That's... I don't know, I just hand whatever they want over, at home. So that's actually a step up.

Abkhazia.

[ He's starting to feel bad about his shitty geopolitical grasp of the world. ]

Does that fall under the densely populated category, or the difficult to access? Or both?

[ that is literally the only answer she has because her family is from the caucasus, ok. ]

Both, at least in the city. It's a pariah state near Russia, close to Sochi, but not so expensive. Sometimes tourists who can't go to Sochi go to the Abkhaz capital. I've never actually been, but I always really wanted to go; unfortunately, having a Russian or American visa is probably the best way in. And mine is Swiss, so I'm not in luck.

It's pretty. I don't know if that's a selling point for you or not.

Edited (speaking of geopolitical awareness, watch me mix up entire countries) 2014-09-24 14:47 (UTC)

It's. Not a minus.

[ Yes, envision this mopey-looking motherfucker wandering around staring expressionlessly at beautiful places. ]

What did you want to see there?

Novy Afon — 'New Athos'. It's an old cathedral adjacent to a massive karst cave that goes down about a million meters. Which is not hyperbole, it is actually about a million meters.

No idea if I'd be brave enough to go inside it, though. Caves freak me out a little bit.

Edited 2014-09-24 18:59 (UTC)

[ His shoulders relax a little, allowing the one arm some laxness against his chest. Apparently that sounds nice to him. ]

That sounds really interesting. Do they let anyone go down? Like in tours?

[ she notices, in an off-hand kind of way, and decides this is incentive to pursue it. ]

Oh, yeah. There's even a metro for reaching the upper levels, it's that popular. I don't know if it or Voronya, the other big cave over there, have ever been fully explored, though.

I'd want to drop a coin down. Can you imagine? I'm sure they don't allow that, but...

One of those — paper things, that spin when you drop them. Which, yeah, littering. I hang my head in shame.

[ He still has a bit of a middle distance stare. This one seems less fraught, though. More gentle imaginings of floaty things, less whatever that all was about earlier. ]

There are caves like that in China too, aren't there? It is a little freaky to think about.

Are there? I'm not surprised. But yes, it is, a bit. I don't know, you spend all this time walking around on this gigantic lava bomb covered in rocks and water, floating in space, but 99.99% of the time, that never occurs to you, that under your feet there's whole abysses and buried cities and just —

[ With a self-effacing chuff of almost-laughter, she waves a hand, breaking off. ] By that general 'you' I obviously mean 'me'.

Hah. Yeah. I think that's true for most people. Or people who aren't geologists or archaeologists, I guess.

It kind of makes those old timey "hollow earth" people and the mole men and all that seem more sympathetic, too.

Those still exist. I've seen the websites. They're leading an expedition soon!

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