I think this is the only existing picture of me in Europe. My friend Roland, a guy from Vienna that I met in Paris, took it. He will soon have a webpage of pictures, and if it’s cool with him, I will link to his shots of Paris.
Today, while driving to get lunch, I started thinking about “what next.” Sure, I’m supposed to be looking for work, but I’d really much rather think about where I’ll travel in the (hopefully) near future.
Not that I’ve done anything since coming home, but I’m kind of sick of being here already.
I started thinking about going to the midwest to visit friends, but isn’t it too soon? I only left a few months ago. Still, for the week or so that it lasts, it would be fun.
Then it struck me. It would be fun because it’s finite. Well, duh, right? Transitory, blah blah blah, nothing lasts forever, blah blah blah, everyone dies, blah blah blah, Mike Richter retired, blah blah blah. Endings give things meaning.
All of that I have known for quite some time.
What I only figured out, or put together today, is that it doesn’t work at all with the perception of invincibility that the young have. I’m never going to die, not me, because I am young and, though slightly overweight, beautiful.
But if I’m never going to die, that means this won’t end, and if this won’t end, then I cannot appreciate its beauty, meaning, etc.
Well I guess I’ve reinvented the wheel. Isn’t there a saying about youth being wasted on the young?
bastards.
***
So yeah, my trip in Europe is over, and it’s now time to write some summation. The above was pretty much how I feel about things right now.
I have already mentioned some about Amsterdam and Belgium. There probably won’t be more of that in this space, as I am saving that material for something else. It’s good stuff, there’s girls, drugs, driving too fast, and a sweat-drenched idiot with blisters on his right foot wearing two obscenely large backpacks at the same time.
Paris was not as great as I had remembered. I was only there for a few hours, but the magic that I had felt from my previous visit seemed to have disappeared. The thing I remember best about the first visit was this: one night, walking back from a bar, passing the hotel de ville, a couple was tangoing to music coming from a boom box. Two days ago, passing the hotel de ville, the square was so jammed with people that I was afraid I would burn someone with my cigarette.
This crowded Paris is the real one, of course. The one that I had experienced in mid-August was the deserted Paris, with everyone on vacation.
Yes, nothing is ever as good as you remembered.
Sometimes I think my whole life falls into that theme.
***
As for this space, I think I did a good job of updating during my trip. Now that I am back, I think maybe I will take a break. Updates will come whenever.
home at last, more tomorrow
The good news is that I finally found an internet cafe that doesn’t butcher my blog’s layout. The bad news is that I’m in Paris and I’m going home tomorrow.
Since I last wrote, I have been to Amsterdam and Belgium. About Amsterdam, let’s just say what happens in Amsterdam stays in Amsterdam. In Belgium I visited a friend of my mother’s [omg, 21 questions by fiddy just came on. I love this song more than a fat kid loves cake] and I stayed with them. They treated me like royalty, it was amazing.
I may write more later, I think I am neglecting an IM conversation right now.
Today I learned the value of a Euro. I went to two museums, and got actually got stuff at a gift shop. Then I went to the Sony center and spent way too much for the coolest headphones I’ve ever seen. The cool thing about Berlin is how strange and how contrasting it is. Within 20 minutes I can walk from something truly old, like the gates of Babylon, to the building where Hermann Goering worked during the Nazi regime, then to the Sony center, where I felt like I was in the future.
About the value of a Euro: today has definitely been my costliest day so far in Europe. I just felt like I was doing good with my budget, with over half of my allotted cash left, and just five more days in Europe, and I will have free lodging with one or two of those days. So I splurged. Headphones, more expensive food, gifts for friends, etc. Then I go back to the hostel to rest my feet, and my key doesn’t work. I had paid for an additional night yesterday, and the guy had trouble printing my receipt, so I told him, whatever, it doesn’t matter. Without the receipt to prove that I had paid, I couldn’t get my key to work without paying again. What could I do? I paid again. This time, though it truly didn’t matter, I got a receipt. I would say live and learn, but you really don’t. I keep receipts for everything, but they always disappear when I need them.
Next stop is Amsterdam. I have no reservations. May end up having to hop a night train to somewhere else.
Before I forget, a few random things:
Last night I was walking on the main drag in West Berlin when I heard Wanksta coming out of a car stopped at a stoplight. I felt pretty at home, but would’ve felt more so if it’d be In tha Club. So I walked towards the car, with the intention of seeing who was listening to Fiddy, and maybe asking them to put on In tha Club. I saw that it was a couple of white guys, and it was coming from a station wagon, and before I could form the relevant German sentence in my head, they had skipped to In tha Club. South side of Jamaica Queens, y’all.
Also last night, I drank enough at the hostel’s bar to do Karaoke. I sang Pretty Woman. I was pretty bad, but there were people who were much worse.
Forget if I’ve written about this before, but there seem to be a lot of Yankee fans in Europe. Sooner or later, I am going to yell to one of them: “How about that series against the Red Sox, eh?” Bastards. It almost makes me wish I had brought over here the free Mets cap that I received on Irish night.
Second day now in Berlin. My hostel is pretty good, and it’s right by the station. I took a walking tour yesterday, and then promptly went back to my room and collapsed. I don’t remember whether the following incident happened this morning or yesterday morning, but as I was going to the hostel, some girls started yelling something at me, probably racist in nature. The only thing they said that I managed to understand was a request for me to buy them tequila.
Today I went to Checkpoint Charlie, and the museum there, and then I went to something called the Topography of Terror.
Most of the stuff to see here is in former East Berlin. The Wall (die Mauer in German), was apparently called the antifascist protection barrier by the East Germans. Since my arrival here I have been thinking a lot of my old German professor, Anke Pinkert. She was from East Berlin and used to talk to us about it. She was also quite attractive, and I once heard Yo La Tengo played at her house. Her son handily beat me at a game of chess, and then when we started talking about videogames, he mentioned Road Rash, and I told him I used to play that all the time on the Sega Genesis, and then he said, Sega Genesis? That’s sooo old.
Despite the possibly racist incident earlier, I have decided to stay here in Berlin an extra day. Mostly because I passed out on my first day here, when I should have been checking out museums. Today most museums are closed, it beng a monday, but I have managed to make pretty good use of my time. Still left on the agenda today are visits to an English bookstore, and a visit to the Reichstag.
I have to go to a bookstore because I ran out of reading in Munich. I bought Native Speaker in Munich, but managed to finish it by the morning I got into Berlin.
I should also book a room for Amsterdam today, but the number keys don’t seem to work on this keyboard.
I’m starting to worry a bit about what’s going to happen when I get back to the states. Job, etc. Though I wouldn’t say I’ve been having the best time of my life in Europe, I’m pretty sure that once I am in the grind of either a job search or a job, I will look back on these three weeks as something wonderful. Therefore I feel guilt about not enjoying this time more, as well as not doing more to take advantage. Namely, spending time at internet cafes when I should be out there
Yes, yes, always with the guilt.
One last thing, it’s September. Always a shitty month.
It’s all starting to blend together. I cannot remember what I did today. I know my day started with doing Laundry (6 euros because the dryer sucked), and the last thing I did was a tour of places in the city that was important to the 3rd Reich. What I did between I cannot really remember. I was wandering around the city center and the university area, but that couldn’t possibly have eaten up the hours between 11am and 3pm.
I need to stay occupied until around 9:30, when I should start waiting for the night train to Berlin. It is currently around 6:00. So I guess it isn’t so bad. After my time here runs out, I can grab a bite to eat, then wait for the train.
I think maybe 3 weeks is too long to be on vacation alone. I am beginning to get a little homesick. Well, maybe not homesick. It’s like I want to go home for a while, rest, take a break, before moving on. These night trains and hostels are really doing a number on me, and the effect is magnified by my being alone all the time.
A few random things:
I have really been enjoying the thongs on European girls.
Germany is the first country on my tour where there was meat available at breakfast.
People always assume I am Japanese or Chinese before American. I am happy about this, in some ways, and sad in some ways. Some Indian people were pretty friendly towards me today, trying to start a conversation by asking which country I am from. After I said I am American, their attitude subtly changed. Another guy at the laundromat today was trying to help me out, because the process was a little complicated. At first he was speaking kind of slowly, but after I finally had the opportunity to speak a complete sentence, as opposed to acknowledgements, he asked me whether I was an American. I said yeah, I’m from New York, and he started to talk normally.
I am getting kind of tired of churches and museums. I am scared that when I get home I will have trouble telling which photos are from which place. But then again, I am only on my 3rd roll of film, as I really hate being overtly a tourist, so I haven’t been taking many pictures, outside of Venice. Actually, I kind of regret not having taken many pictures in Paris. Maybe I will take more when I get back.
German girls appeal to me in a buxom blonde way. Italian girls appealed to me in a “wow, they’re hot” way. Geneva girls appealed to me in a “wow they’re rich” way. Paris girls appealed to me in a “there’s something wonderful about her” way. I think I’ve liked the Paris girls best. Especially the ones on bicycles.
If I start to count up how much money I’ve spent on internet access in Europe I will probably feel guilty (more so).
Some girls were walking in front of me this morning carrying bags that said “New Yorker.” I felt like telling them I’m from New York, etc etc, but instead I just watched their wonderfully VPL-free behinds for a block.
Next stop: Berlin.
That is what they say in Munich as a greeting. That’s what I had learned in German class, but it sounded so strange that I didn’t believe it until I heard it this morning from a tabac clerk.
After my misadventure in Milan yesterday, I actually made it to Munich without great difficulty. I spoke to various Trena Italia officials about my situation and I was given a few different options:
1.) Get on the train and pay there.
2.) Catch a train to Verona to catch the couchette while it waits for two hours in Verona.
3.) Forget Munich altogether and go somewhere else.
I was afraid to do #1 because I had heard there would be a stiff penalty for not having a reservation for a couchette. #2 was rather appealing because it gave me a sense of adventure. #3 had me skipping Germany altogether and going to Brussells or Amsterdam, after which I would go back to Paris and spend more time there.
The latter two options were both quite appealing, but I ended up going with no. 1 because I did not want too badly to skip Germany, and because I did not want to end up getting stuck in Verona for hours. It worked out. I was fine, as I had predicted since before beginning my trip. The DeutscheBahn people were very nice. I did not have to pay any penalties. In fact, I got a bed for just 15 Euros. When I reserved a trip to Berlin tomorrow night via Couchette I had to pay 20.
The platform in Milan was full of confusion, as the same train had cars that were headed to Venice, Vienna, and Munich. The DB people spoke passable English. The Italians spoke no German, and little English. I actually ended up doing some translation via gestures. It was good, I got to speak German with a bit. Later on, during the two hour layover in Verona, I went and got a beer with an Italian guy in my couchette, by the name of, get this, Pepe! He said I looked Peruvian.
My morning in Munich has been strange. When I got in, very little was open. My first action was to find a place to stay. Maybe I have let the experience in Florence sour me too much, but I ended up going to a cheap hotel. 34 Euros for tonight. That’s half the cost of my room in Venice, but no TV. And it’s 10 Euros more expensive than my hostel in Paris, which had a shower in the room. The privacy is nice, but overall, I think I made a mistake.
After getting the room, and making a ton of mistakes filling out the card (the receptionist actually tore the card up and filled one out herself, while asking me questions), I decided to explore the area around the train station. I stumbled into the Euraid office, where a very strange sounding man practically yelled “hello” at me. This man could almost pass for an American, accent-wise. There were very few strangely pronounced words. The thing that gave him away was his overly cheerful demeanor. He was really cool to deal with and I recommend any English speakers travelling to Munich to stop by the Euraid office, if only just to hear this guy talk.
At his office, I decided on a trip to Dachau. Not much else to say about that. Visiting Dachau is pretty much what one would imagine it would be like. The only disconcerting thing is the somewhat nonchalant demeanor of the German youths there. Not exactly disrespectful, but somewhat out of place. One other strange thing, there is a town nearby also called Dachau. I wonder what kind of reaction they get when they travel abroad. They probably just say they’re from Munich, I guess.
So it’s three in the afternoon, and I haven’t actually seen much of Munich. I’ve mostly just been around the train station area. It’s kind of disappointing. I need to do my laundry today, and that’s around here too. Maybe I will save all of my sight seeing for tomorrow.
I had expected a much easier time getting along in Germany than in the other countries I’ve been so far, on account of my knowing some German. What I have learned so far is that my German is fucking terrible. I pretty much understand only half of what people say. Train announcements, etc. With transactions I am able to understand a little more, maybe three-quarters. I guess it’s better to say everything I need to say in a transaction in German and be talked to in English, than say Je suis desole, je ne parle pas francais, and have to talk in English.
In Munich what you’re supposed to do is go to a biergarten. But I’ve done so much drinking alone on this trip I don’t really feel up to it. We will see. Maybe I will get one of those famous liters of beer with my dinner of assorted meats. Or maybe I will just eat burger king because I’m pretty worn down by travelling at this point.
One more thing: it’s currently raining here, and one of the things I wanted to do today was go to the English Gardens, which is a thing people do because of the nude sunbathers there. Oh well, McFate has screwed me again.
Will probably update tomorrow due to sheer boredom. Then it’s off to Berlin. Don’t know how long I will stay there yet but I will probably be in Amsterdam by Wednesday at the latest.
As you can tell by the title of the entry, I am in Milan for no good reason. Venice was freaking amazing. More on that later. My next stop is Munich, and I could have either hung out in Venice until 10:00pm tonight, when the Venice-Munich night train leaves, or I could have come to Milan and killed some time and caught the 8:00pm Milan-Munich night train. So I came to Milan. I haven’t seen much of the city, but the main attraction, according to Lonely Planet, is the Duomo. So I deposit my big bag at the train station and head into the metro to see the Duomo. In the metro station, an obviously drunk man asked me for money in Italian. I said “no italiano” or something like that, at which point the man started asking me for money in English. So I said “no understand english” and he moved on. Times like that I am glad I am a chinaman. Anyway, I get off at the Duomo stop to find that the cathedral is all covered up for renovations or something. DAMMIT.
So now I have a lot of time to kill. I could do laundry, except I left my big bag at the train station. I could walk from here (right by the Duomo) to the train station, but this is my last non-stinky shirt. So I guess I will just hang out here for a few more hours.
I had sweat so much in Venice that the cardboard flap of my pack of luckies disintegrated. A bunch of cigarettes fell out and now my pocket is full of tobacco flakes.
More about Venice. First thing I did when I got to my hotel was shower. Even in just the 10 minute walk from the train station to my hotel my clothes got soaked. It was that hot in Venice. I cooled off in the AC watching German television (they had a satellite and it received mostly German channels) for a few hours. I left the room at 5pm or so and began to explore the city. Lonely Planet said that the Piazza San Marco was a must see, so I began to follow the signs pointing the way to Piazza San Marco. These signs are posted rather haphazardly, so it was quite an adventure getting there. I made many wrong turns. Even if I had gone via the shortest route possible, it is a pretty long walk. By the time I crossed the Ponte Rialto I was completely soaked and thinking about giving up. Fortunately, I persevered, and in about fifteen minutes, the narrow alleys that I had been winding through opened up into the spectacular Piazza San Marco. Flashbulbs where going off in every direction. I myself took at least seven pictures there. The feeling that one gets when emerging from the darkness into this huge square is hard to describe. I believe I actually felt what people call “joy” when I got there.
I sat down and had a cigarette and listened to some orchestra that was playing there, and watched the pretty girls passed by, and just soaked in that “joy.” After the sun set, I began the trek back to the hotel. In the dark, it was even harder to see the signs, and I reached a couple of dead ends. At one point, the street just ended at the Grand Canal; the girls that had been following me (perhaps thinking that I knew where I was going because I walked so fast) actually screamed something in Italian. Probably a curse. They ended up taking a taxi at the canal while I backtracked my way to the last sign.
By the time I got to the hotel, I was really soaked, and very very tired. I find a nearby restaurant and had the menu touristico, and three glasses of wine. That was the first great meal I had in Europe. Back in my room, after another shower, I enjoyed some late night Italian TV, then went to sleep.
Venice was fun, but I don’t think I could spend a lot of time there. Maybe if I had a girl with me… I saw a lot of happy couples in Venice, and despite the “joy” that I had felt in the Piazza San Marco, I definitely felt lonely. Especially when I was having dinner.
There are a lot of fun things about backpacking alone, but dinner is certainly not one of them.
One thing I forgot to mention about Florence: My last night there, I was approaching Ponte Vecchio when all of a sudden, all of the black guys selling stuff on the sidewalks packed up and just ran. All of the tourists were taken aback. One running vendor dropped a pair of sunglasses. As usual, I was debating whether I should pick them up instead of taking action, so someone beat me to a pair of free sunglasses. It’s okay, I can’t wear sunglasses on account of my real glasses anyway.
My god, it is not even 4:00pm. Maybe I would have been better off staying in Venice.
First, some background. After a very tiring day walking the streets of Florence, I returned to my bed in the hostel to finish re-reading Lolita. Perhaps it was a bad idea to bring Monsieur Humbert with me on the trip, as I was more interested in his story than my own adventure in Florence. After I finished the book, I decided to finish writing of my own unrequited love. What came out was the following. At one point, an attractive girl walked in and distracted me enough that I invented a new game, based upon Rock Paper Scissors called Cock Pen Sword.
**
When last we left our hero, he was on his way back to Macalester College in the waning days of summer in the fateful year of 2001. One need not mention explicitly and in gruesome detail the events that transpired that September, except to say that those events added to the Bubbling Cauldron of Angst and Romantic Complications brewed within our hero. Or perhaps it is the other way around: the needlessly melodramatic romantic entanglements magnified the pure horror and shock of that September. Or maybe this is all bullshit, and one has nothing to do with the other, except in the world of the author, who teeters, to this day, On the Edge. Regardless, here are, in a phrase I have used before, out-of-sequence details.
It’s the first weekend, or possibly Monday back at school. Before the sordid mess of the previous semester had seemingly come to a close, I had learned that she would be living in a language house on out-of-the-way Vernon Street. There is nothing remarkable about Vernon Street. I only mention it because I have traversed it, that particular block anyway, many more times than necessary (never). I did it in various combinations: on foot, on skates, in my car, coasting in my car with my engine cut, coasting with the lights off at night, roaring through after a frustrating day and rattling the windows, in someone else’s car, etc.
On this particular day, I had heard that her house was having an ice cream social open to all. Even so, I felt it necessary to bring along someone who had a reason to visit this particular language house. Two other friends who found amusement in my behavior came along.
We make a first pass, on foot, and despite our best efforts, could not find the house in question. A second pass, in the opposite direction showed some signs of activity at one particular house. A third pass confirmed our hypothesis. A four pass which should have resulted in entry was deemed too suspicious by my companions, especially the one who had a reason to be there. Thus began the pattern of infantile and abortive attempts at reestablishing contact that lasted the next two years.
**
On certain sunny and temperate days, I can convince myself that all I wanted that day was to check up on her and say a quick hello; that had contact been successful, the cancer would have been removed right there, without harm to my various humors. Nipped in the bud, so to speak. On normal days, however, I know that it is my nature to brood and obsess. Even now I am worried, simultaneously, both about the girl across from me thinking I am a tool, and about her thinking I am soulful and morose in an attractive way, and that I should ravage her in the nearest picaresque Florentine alley, in between the waves of recklessly speeding scooterists and those funny looking three-wheeled trucks.
**
“Somewhere over the Rainbow” floats through the barred windows of the common room. Right now, here within these walls stained by years of smoking backpackers passing through, and with a tray of ashes, four badly bent butts, and a peach pit before me, it is the saddest song I have ever heard.
**
“Pardon me. Mi scusi. Excuse-moi. Parlez vous Anglais? For someone coughing so much, you are smoking too much. Those things will kill you, you know, maybe you should cut back. Do you mind my asking what you are writing? You seem rather engrossed. Are you writing a poem about how attractive I am, sitting here chain smoking and furiously writing? If so, I will fall madly in love with you on the spot.”
A friendly smile and a shake of the head.
“No English.”
**
Dreadful Poem Written Through Sheer Boredom at a Florentine Hostel
E****a, E****a, where have you gone?
My faltering pen cannot find the words.
For you, my blond beloved muse I mourn.
By a nameless girl chased away, like birds.
And now, alas, she too has left the room
leaving me alone with nary a muse.
Soon enough her nebulous ghost will loom.
Patterns and images I will reuse.
So tonight in bed as I toss and turn,
furious with myself for inaction,
the memories and words will start to churn:
One more chance lost at mutual attraction.
The ashtray here contains a small peach pit.
A better image for “used up” won’t fit.
**
