I can almost hear expressions of "Eww!" and "Yuck!" from all the way across the ocean. No underwear? How can I say such a thing?
Not sure what this church is, but I loved the eye over the lintel.
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I have had to pack, repack, unpack, and discard things from my one suitcase for several months now. One suitcase for eight months, and it's not much bigger than a regular backpack. Even has straps if I need to carry it that way. I would never consider throwing out a pair of socks. Underwear? Meh.
Let me go back a couple years. I was camped in Espanola, New Mexico and needed to do laundry. My laundry that week would have filled my suitcase twice over. Of course, I had sheets and towels. But one thing I had never skimped on was socks. Since I get aggravated with sorting socks, I'd bought fifteen pair of Cabela's socks. Easy peasy. So as I'm pulling my laundry out of the dryers, a couple people walked into the laundry who looked like they were homeless. They each had a rolling suitcase and I'd passed them walking on the highway a mile out of town. The guy looked at my pile of laundry and said, "Can I buy a pair of socks from you?" My automatic response was "No." Sometimes I want to shoot that automatic responder. Here I was with fifteen matched pair of Cabela socks and another several pair that were more difficult to sort and pair up. I didn't even like them, but I was going to not let this guy have any? I grabbed three pair of the ones that I didn't really like and turned to the guy and said, "Here. You can have these if you'd like them." His smile was brilliant! He knew the value of socks.
Romania's Arc d' Triumph, honoring the soldiers of World War I. They knew the value of socks, too!
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Since coming on this trip, I've done a lot of hiking. I've got a lot of new callouses. And one thing I've learned is that you don't go exploring without good socks.
Sure, but you have to have underwear, right?
Why?
Let's start out by ruling out modesty. If your underwear is worn correctly, no one knows you have it on. When Q was about 13, I took her and her girlfriend shopping for school clothes. What were their mothers thinking? They loved the fact that I would sit around while they selected the finest that Fred Meyer had to offer and run off to try it on. For hours. I gave them one rule: If it looks like underwear, it has to be worn under. Not straps showing, not panties that come above the waist of the jeans, not bra-tops. I have to say, they each got quite a nice school wardrobe!
The next is hygiene. Unless you are wearing your pants up in your crotch--and how uncomfortable is that?--you have less contact with anything unsanitary than when you are wearing underwear. And for many people, that's the cleanest part of their bodies anyway. And if you are wearing those pants that conform to every wrinkle in your butt, then your underwear is going to be visible anyway.
Romanians have figured out the secret of Easter Island. Those colossal heads sticking up are actually monuments to their famous authors. In this park, there were dozens of big heads of authors sticking up out of the ground.
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The truth of the matter is that we wear underwear because Americans are obsessed with genitals. I went into Starbucks today. Yes, they're even here in Bucharest. I just wanted a cup of coffee and a bathroom. They had both. I mean coffee and A BATHROOM. You walk in the door of the bathroom and there are sinks. There are cabinets in one room with private toilets. Around the corner there are urinals. There are no markings for women and men. Because no one pays attention to other people's toilet habits! It's remarkable.
In fact, I find people have very little concern about policing other people's genitals. And I believe that will be a requisite for colonizing space. People will travel light years from our planet and do you think there are going to be separate luxurious bathrooms on those little spacecraft? You've watched too many Star Trek and Star Wars movies. In the flat I am sharing in Bucharest, four men and a woman share a bathroom that is not much bigger than the one in my trailer. The sink is actually in the shower, which makes a lot of sense. There is no lock on the door because you don't open the bathroom door if it's closed unless you verify that it is unoccupied.
Americans will never let go of their genital obsession long enough to go into space.
This is a really beautiful memorial to the Romanian airmen of World War II. Unfortunately, it is in the middle of a very busy traffic circle, but I was able to snap a pic between cars.
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I've often wondered what it is about the American God that makes him so ashamed of what he created.
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