thehostelwitness

London day 5

It was last night when I found myself again parked in a chair at the White Hart pub, speaking with an Aussie named Nick. Far more than any other nationality I've run into, Australians seem to be perpetually on the road travelling. Australia itself reminds me a bit of Canada, in that its a huge landmass populated by a handful of cities and barren wilderness, often with hundreds of miles separating one city from the next (Perth, on the western coast, is the world's most isolated city). Sharing the same width as the US, Australia also has about 85% of the landmass. The problem is, if Australia is like Canada, the closest thing they come to the US then is Europe. So when they do travel, they do it seriously - for weeks, sometimes months at a time.

This was something that I had envied with each Aussie I had met, the chance - no, the expectation of a major trip almost on a yearly basis. Here before me though was someone who had successfully made travel his vocation. He spent years in coastal cities around the world as a scuba instructor and now, he crews private yachts. His current berth was in Spain, part of a three person crew aboard a 90 foot yacht. At the owner's beck and call, in the winter he may never be asked to sail at all, but still gets paid a healthy yearly salary. The ultimate goal, he told me, was to get on a senior crew that rotates out every 3 months. This means 3 months of work for a years' wages.

For a moment, I thought here was the vocation that I had been looking for. 3 months of work - not even necessarily hard work, 'cause if you have an owner who only goes out say, once a week for two hours at a time, you are really only looking at 24 hours of work in total. An entire life dedicated to serving the super, ultra rich and in return, a life of travel and luxury.

Slowly though, doubts started to enter my mind. I looked closer at Nick. Red, wind worn skin, late thirties. He had no family, no desire to settle down. He could see himself doing this for the rest of his life. Really though, there comes a point in your life, where when you reach it, physically there is just no way of going back. Nick had dedicated the last 15 years of his life to the beaches and the sea. He probably still chased skirts in every port of call. Today, he was having fun, but like a 40 year old bartender who wakes up one morning and realizes he's desperately unhappy, there was just no other road for a vocation in front of him. And quickly, right before my eyes, he grew very, very alone.

I had a mini-epiphany right there in the bar. I did not want to get to a point in my life where there was no turning back. What I realized is that right here before me was a map to the easy life. The problem with the easy life though, much like the suit wearing life, is that it comes with a cost. To live the easy life, you had to dedicate your life to it and you have to be willing to live your entire life alone, with friends you see briefly, maybe once or twice over the course of years. Its just too much (or rather, not enough). The realization set me aback and occupied my mind for most of the following day. All my life back there in the back of my mind was the possibility that maybe, one day, I could just give it all up, cash in what I had, and go live on the cheap somewhere out on a beach. To have that idea suddenly implode left a little hole in my psyche, like losing your blankey after 30 years.

I decided to just walk for a while. I headed north, head looking down, deep in thought. I walked for hours north through London, all the way up to Hackney. To paraphrase from the Naked Gun movies - "I had to clear my mind. I had all of these questions in my head - what could I do now? how could I have not seen it coming? And...where the hell was I?"

Hackney was dominated primarily by city housing projects, liquor stores, empty sidewalks, and the lone hoods standing on the corners. Clearly I had exceeded the bounds of my visitors visa. I turned back around and, a bit more mindful of my surroundings, headed back into the city. I told my friends about this later and they all ll looked at me like I was crazy. I walked south to London's financial center, its skyline dominated by what looks like a gigantic glass egg, the lovechild of Godzilla and Frank Lloyd Wright. Next to it, much smaller but nonetheless just as amazing, was a building entirely without an exterior. Ducts ran all the way up the building, glass elevators cascading down, trusses exposed at every corner. One side of the skeleton was built into a classic columned London building facade, but the other three sides were left completely exposed. I had never seen anything like it - just imagine hordes of suited men and women going in and out of a building in mid construction.

I walked south some more, coming across the Tower of London, briefly touring the castle grounds, before going into the Tate Modern Art Museum. The Tate is monsterous. Housed inside an old electrical plant, its one of the largest free modern art galleries in the world. Along the entire length of the bottom floor ran an ingenious sculpture - Shibboleth - a single crack in the concrete that spanned the length of two football fields. Try as I could, I just could not figure out how in the world the artist, Doris Salcedo, had created it. She's not talking either. In her 90's, Salcedo plans on taking the secret to her grave. In addition to the most recent of modern art, the museum also houses a fine collection of Rothko and Monet paintings. Did I mention it was free? Not a bad way to spend an afternoon.

Sitting in the galleries helped calm my mind a bit and I ended the day in higher spirits. The whole purpose of my trip was to answer some questions - whether I could dedicate an entire life to leisure being one of them - and slowly I'm getting the answers I was looking for. I realized that my shock from the previous night wasn't so much from learning that I didn't want a life living on a beach somewhere afterall, but rather for the first time, at the age of 30, I wanted to settle down or, more precisely, I realized that I was afraid of not settling down, the whole wife and kids bit. The alternative frankly, was sitting there that night next to me in the bar.

Still, living my whole life on the road and taking a bit of time off to travel for a bit are two entirely different breeds of life. I think what had been missing before in life was a bit of the balance and the trick is now to try and even out the last 8 years. There's still a year of this left in me yet.

London days 1-4

There is a point when travelling, I am told, when the solo traveller starts craving home, of seeing friends and family, of eating home cooked meals. Fortunately, I thought as I munched down a Burger King Royale Chicken sandwich, I haven't hit that point yet. The train to London was leaving in about a half hour and really, since the cuisinee in Scotland is legendary only for the wrong reasons, I felt pretty guilt free hitting the Burger King, hoping for some kind of homeward pangs of conscious. No such luck.

The train to London would take me about 5 hours and cost me almost a quarter of what I paid for my Eurail pass in totale. Even though I could have paid about $40 for a flight to London, I am a firm believer in the axiom, "You get what you pay for". Sure, nothing crashed, but just like the lotto, someones number one day is going to be called. One day, a $40 value flight will crash and I have no desire to leave my parents crying, wondering why oh why did their son trade his life just to save a few bucks?

That's how I worked to rationalize the cost, anyway. The truth is I've grown quite fond of the train and spending the day watching the countryside pass before my eyes is well worth the cost. Besides, I'd be spending my days rent free, the result of a drunken invitation from my friends from Rome - surely a little luxury is therefore in order.

Arriving in London's rail station during rush hour is a bit like going to a David Lee Roth concert - thousands of people milling around with a resigned look of defeat on their faces, each wondering why the hell they were there. The people in the London tube push just as much as they do in a NYC subway, but the difference is nothing is said. No comments, no yelling, if anything just a cluck of the tongue to signal impatience. Wearing my backpack, everytime I heard a cluck, I turned around to try to locate the source, braining someone in the process. The Tube, I learned, is an accurate name for the subway, as everything - including the cars themselves - are circular. I've never seen a mass transit system designed soley for the short.

Eventually, I made it to the London Bridge station, where pulling out my directions I noted I should be walking eastward along the Thames. I walked, beaming. This was the first time in all of my arrivals that I would get somewhere without getting lost. Or so it would have been, if I would have headed west instead of say, east. I walked for minutes, scratching my head in puzzlement at each map I encountered, each time discovering the street I wanted was growing father behind me, but because I'm an idiot, kept on walking. I wanted to trust in my instincts and hastily scribbled directions and in my stubbornness, desperately wanted for once, not to get lost. At worst, I rationalized, eventually I'd get to the street. I may run out of island and have to circumnavigate the globe in the process, but eventually I would get there.

In the end, my desire to get out of the cold and not spend the nigt on the street was enough to get me to turn around and heading west, I promptly found the address.

Conveniently, as if almost meant to be, a pub sat next to the apartment. I decided a brief stopover was in order. I shuffled into the pub, which was packed with the post work crowd, ordering a Tenet's. The first immediate difference between a London pub and an American pub is the volume. There is life in the pub. Loud music, raucous laughter - all at 7pm. My entire stay in NYC, I was searching for a bar like this (in fact, I would have killed to have a bar like this right next to my apartment). I loved it. My glass empty, I was emboldened to order a scotch - no, scratch that. Whiskey. Jack Daniels. No Ice. God damn me if there isn't a drink more American than a JD neat. I felt a flush of pride (and alcohol) - here I was, sitting in our country's ancestoral homeland and even though we can't put together one decent pub, we've still got baseball, Bryan Adams, Ford Trucks, and Jack Daniels. God bless us all.

So was my mental state when I made my way out to the apartment to reintroduce myself to friends.

Fortunately, I was allowed to stay. The weekend was spent visiting the bourough markets, an open air affair where one can purchase everything from fresh rosemary to ostrich burgers. Even in the cold morning air, the place was packed with Londoners shopping for the week's groceries in this, one of their better kept secrets. I spent that night pub crawling with a pack of Australians up in Camdem in the neighborhood colorfully named "Chalk Farm". The highlight of the night was a hastily arranged "knighting" of a homeward bound Aussie (who was presented with t-shirt -"Lord of the Lifestyle") and another Aussie who had her birthday that night. To her, she was given a certificate naming a star after her trademark saying ("hihihihi haha!"). The unhighlight of the night was falling down on my face, a result I'm sure of London's uneven sidewalks and not, I will maintain, to drink. I am injury free, although I did skin off the hair on my shins, which only bothers me as it probably took my entire life time to grow them.

Sunday was kept a bit lighter, with a cooked dinner out in Hammersmith. I was keen to visit Hammersmith, as Joe Strummer grew up in that neighborhood. Of course, much has changed since then, with brand new townhomes standing in what used to be a run down suburb. Gentrification strikes again. While overall its a good thing, on the other hand you'd have a hard time as a kid being upset and angry - where is the anger for tomorrow's music going to come from?

Monday morning, my hosts were at work (suckers...) so I would have to find my own diversions. I decided that I would walk east along Southbank and the Thames river until I ran out of walkway. Turning north, I crossed into Victoria Gardens and wandered by Westminster Abbey (they wanted 10 pounds just to walk inside of the church...and they said the church had stopped selling favors...), before sitting down for an outside lunch at the National Gallery. I stopped in the National Portrait Gallery, mainly because it was free, but was surprised to find an exhibition highlighting their 2007 Portrait contest, where thousands of professionals and amatuers had sent in prints of portraits they had taken in the past year. 60 finalists were chosen to have their final works displayed in the museum. I only go into length about this as I know certain photographers who definately should enter into this next year, i.e. Tara, Jayson, and John. I'm just saying...

The rest of the week will feature more museums, probably a tour, and a daytrip out to one of the surrounding communities. In the meantime, I'm happily sitting in a pub (as I write this, I'm staring out across at a theater featuring Christian Slater starring in the stage production of Swimming with the Sharks. Who would have thought, that after Gleaming the Cube, Untamed Heart, and Pump Up The Radio, he'd be on stage in London?) I love this city.

Edinburgh day 3

The third day is the charm. Edinburgh was chilly this morning, but more importantly, it was dry. A grey curtain covered the city, but by the afternoon is was swept back to reveal green wind swept cliffs surrounding the city and the Firth of Forth gleaming blue in the background. The lightened weather also seemed to improve the mood of the city somewhat, as I noticed many smiling faces and even recieved passing "hellos" on this, my third day in the city.

With the nice weather arriving, I hit the city once more, revisiting sights already seen but this time with camera in hand. I found myself once again approaching the castle, but as I got close I heard what sounded like a cannon shot and looked up to see smoke rising from the cliff underneath the castle. A new seige? (Actually, my thought was more like, "What the fuck?") I wandered closer to investigate.

It turns out, a crew was carrying out a controlled demolition of part of the cliff, a bit questionable considering that the cliff is all that is keeping the castle from falling, but after the heavy rain I suspect perhaps some maintenance was needed. Getting closer, I saw six men repelling on the cliff face, hacking away at loose rock and soil with a hammer and pick. The fact that they get to use dynamite makes this probably the Best Job In The Entire World. The only question is how does one get hired to do something like this? I have a bit of window washing experience, so the hanging from on high while working I can probably manage and in my youth I blew up frogs with M22s, so I can probably parlay that into demolitions experience. I just need to find an opening.

I walked around the perimeter of the castle and found myself approaching the grounds of the University of Edinburgh. Its not a very large university, with what appeared to be former townhouses comprising various colleges within the school. There was a center dedicated for the "School for the Studies of the Two World Wars" and the building that housed the American studies center also housed the Islamic studies center, which would make for a really interesting double major.

I pressed on, discovering the tomb of David Hume in a random cemetary, a monument dedicated to Abraham Lincoln and the Scottish who died in the American civil war (all 11 of them), wandered through the very large Meadow Park, and finally up to Holyrood Park, which sits across from the Scottish Parlimentary building. For a country which recently had its first terror attack (an attack on the Glasgow airport), I found the security for the parliment to be remarkably lax. No security fence or armed guards patrolling the perimeter. A major road ran just yards away with nothing to slow down an approaching vehicle. I could walk right into the building with no one really to stop me. It was a refreshing experience and a huge statement of trust considering most convenience stores have more obvious security. An old Korean guy with a bat under the counter sitting up front would have constituted an improvement.

I headed back across the street and decided for a hike into Holyrood park. In many ways, the park brings to mind some of the canyons of Yakima. I hiked up the hills, the trails shaped at 30 degree angles, pausing every once in a while to take in the ever improving view. This was more like it. I wandered into a small section of exposed rock called "Sutton's Section", where a plaque informed me that in this very spot geologist James Sutton had proved rocks formed through molten rock and not, as thought at the time, by the coldness of the ocean. Now, I'm no geologist, but nonetheless I was a bit impressed that I was standing on a spot where a smart guy made a good guess and impressed a bunch of dumb people. Seriously, rocks by cold water? Psshhh...

By this time, the clouds had parted and a setting sun lit the sky up in blues and pinks, every once in a while giving the effect of a flashlight being pointed on the city from up on high. I was elated and nearly completely alone. With the wind whipping up all around me, I hiked higher and higher, jumping from rock to rock with growing glee, until finally I couldn't help myself and started reinacting scenes from Braveheart (the part when they are running up along the cliff face with the bagpipe music playing). Its always a sign that you've been on the road for a while when you start brazenly laughing at your own idiocy, trying to sing words to the lone Scottish tune you know.

"You take the lowww road and I shall take the hiiigh road and...something something better than you.."

I gave up, but then remembered that Snow Patrol and Franz Ferdinand are Scottish bands, so I sang those songs instead.

Tonight, Thanksgiving, marks the beginning of Edinburgh's holiday festival, a monthlong nightly celebration featuring beer gardens, an open air market, and carnival rides. I wandered through it for a bit, dodging kids chasing each other, and smiled at my first greeting of the Christmas season. The mulled wine was hot and I passed on the obligatory haggis with whiskey sauce platter, opting for fajitas instead. All in all, not a bad way to finish out the visit. The next morning greeted me with crisp blue skies and the weather forecast revealed sunny weather all along the eastern coast, perfect for my train ride to London.

Edinburgh day 2

I had of course, heard about the rain in Scotland. So much, they said, that moss grows in your armpits. Whatever. I'm from Seattle, I can handle it. So when I woke this morning to a rainy, grey sky, I wasn't fazed. I donned my rain gear and headed out the door. By the time the rain, a steady downpour, stopped 15 hours later, every inch of clothing I was wearing was soaked. It seems that some respect is due to the Scottish weather.

Even with the bad weather, I still had a full day ahead of me. Up and down Prince, George, and Queen Streets. Then up the Royal Mile to Edinburgh Castle. I was interested in going into the Castle proper, but at the gate the posted price was for 12 pounds - nearly $25 US. For that price, I hoped for some kind of souvenir - a kilt or bagpipe lessons, but nothing. I turned around, a little miffed at the cost of walking through an old castle in the rain and walked across the street to the "Whiskey Experience", which promised an interactive tour of the makings of whiskey and a tasting. In my free guidebook obtained at the tourist center, it had said this was a can't miss. For a price of 10 pounds though, I decided that I could miss, thank you very much. I looked more carefully at the guidebook. The highest rated activity in Edinburgh, according to the raters, was a visit to the Lochcarron weaving mill. "Cashmere Unwrapped", it promised. Into the garbage went the guide.

With no more guide to take me to expensive places, I would have to find them myself. Into action came the old reliable, plan b. I stopped in a bar called "The Standing Order", at what used to be the Weaverley Steps. A huge, cavernous room with intricate, carved columns, the pub felt more like standing in Grand Central than a Scottish pub. Unfortunately, the food and service was crap, but maybe - and no offense intended - that's what its like in Scottish restaurants. An hour later and laden with a couple of Scottish pints, I headed back out into the rain and piled through the sites, ending up at the Scottish National Gallery. The gallery was impressive and, even more impressive, free. The museum has an impressive collection of impressionist paintings and of course, Scottish artists. I was most happy to see a painting by Rene Margritte, whom I've only had the chance to see before at MOMA in NYC. Still, a museum in Scotland isn't without its expected quirks. For example, all of the museum attendents wear dark sport jackets, but with tartan pants. It looked like someone took a senior center and stuck priceless works of art within it. I wandered around, looking for the Bingo parlor, but alas just some Monet, Degas, etc, etc. Yawn.

Still, it was a nice break from the rain and put a big check in the "pro" column for Edinburgh. Another thing I like about Scotland is the music. You stop in a coffee shop and it isn't Paul McCartney or Nora Jones playing ad naseum, but rather lesser known acts like Son Volt. After the music vacuum that is Germany, it is a nice little surprise, though it doesn't make up for BBC1, BBC2, or BBC3 thank you very much. The programming is so horrible, it makes "Till Death" look funny by comparison (haven't seen that show? Don't worry, you and millions of fortunate other individuals...)

I had some soup to warm myself up and then trudged my back to my room to dry off and catch a bit of soccer (England 2, Croatia 3). Watching the game, I was struck by the level at which the commentators were better than their US brethren. A minimal amount of replay, honest dismay in watching England lose, and no 400 pound men or 80 pound women talking from the sideline. The announcers were in particular complaining about the pitch at Wembley, making a reference to how the "American game of football" played there 3 weeks earlier had ruined the field. They didn't say it, but the message was clear: We're a bunch of fat asses.

Edinburgh day 1

I ended up spending five days in Fulda, two more than I had previously planned, but all for good effect. I was able to see my cousins, recharge, and in the process, gain a good pound or two's worth of wurst, beer, and cake. Still, while I was getting my fill of bludwurst (not as bad as it sounds), in the back of my mind I was trying to plan the next city to visit. Germany's rail system was back on track (bad pun intended), but Munich was the coldest part of the country and under snow. The cold weather that gripped the continent froze (again, intended. Last one, I promise) my plans to spend Thanksgiving in Barcelona, as just two nights ago it got to minus 12 degrees celsius in Spain, not exactly the beach weather I had been hoping for. Paris was my backup plan, but with a weeks' worth of ongoing transit strikes all but crippled the city, so that too, would have to wait.

While I pondered where to go next, Peter called the house and invited me to spend a few hours up at the shooting range. While I hadn't fired a single shot since boyscouts, a German shooting range I just had to see. We drove to the range and upon walking in, I felt as though I had been transported to a backcountry cabin in Michigan. The Germans here all, without fail, wore blue jeans, flannel shirts, and worn baseball caps. There were American flags on the wall and pictures from the lodge's annual old west day. Winchester rifle ads adorned the walls, with gun magazines littering the tables inside, old men pouring over the pictures like kids on a nudie magazine. I felt immediately at home.

Peter was a marksman in the German military and his friend, Dave, from Minnesota spent 8 years in the US army. Whether it was the expensive gun that did the work for me or just good old fashioned USA/boyscout genetics, I was able to put four shots just off center, all within a quarter inch of each other. Dave looked at the grouping and just nodded, "Well, its dead."

My innate manliness confirmed, I retired to Ute and Dieter's house for the night. Strangely, the shooting helped to clear my mind on a destination: in the morning I would leave for Edinburgh. It came to me while I was putting a hole in Bambi's head from 200 meters out. I figured if was going to spend the next two weeks in shit weather, I might as well spend it in a place thats famous for it. And in the best of traditions, I can sit quite comfortably in a Scottish pub, wait out the weather, and not feel at all bad about it.

Scotland...well, even if they speak English technically I don't think it can be considered English, as I have an easier time understanding German than I do two Scotsman talking to each other. One pair sitting behind me on the plane really threw me for a loop, until I realized that they were conversing in German with Scottish accents. That combination quite possibly, is the worst, ugliest language combination that exists, next to Marlee Matlin speaking Klingon. Once I landed, things were only marginally better.

"Excuse me, " I asked, "Is this the bus to Leith Links?"

"Tsa tsey gun rounda kehy."

"Sorry?"

"TSA TSEYD, guna rounda kehy!"

"...thank you."

Despite any issues with the local brogue, the city is really quite amazing. Imagine the stores of Fifth Avenue in New York on one side of the road and ancient castles, churches, and palaces rising up above you on the other. You walk around the city with your mouth open, dumbfounded that the locals aren't constantly in awe of the unique history and beauty around them. Of all my travels in these past two months, only Venice was able to create this kind of instant awe, but I would venture that even there the locals are keenly aware of the uniqueness of their city. Walking through the streets, the feeling was that of walking through New York on my first day of work.

I ducked into a bar called "Tiles" on Alexander Sq. Tiles was a place described by the writer Bill Bryson as drinking a beer in a giant bathroom, as the floor to ceiling are all covered in tiling. I enjoyed it, but will admit to a mild dissapointment upon discovering that the bathroom itself was tiled - here I was hoping for some kind of irony, maybe make a wood panelled WC. Back up in the bar, I poured through a daily, happy to read news in English for once. About fifty pages in, I read something that almost caused me to spit my beer out. In New York, the famous dessert house, "Serendipity 3", had been closed due to an infestation of roaches and rats. Serendipity 3, where a friend had taken me after making reservations weeks in advance and now, officially, the first place I have ever eaten that has closed only months later due to roaches. The restaurant was the setting for a John Cusack movie which I haven't seen, but I'm willing to bet did not feature rat droppings in his frozen hot chocolate.

A tad bit drunk and a bit mollified, I walked back into the street to continue my night tour of the city. I came to Edinburgh in part on recommendation of Dr. Brian of Rome trip fame and considered it somewhat ironic that the night was warm and it wasn't raining - the very reasons I came here in the first place. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I'll gladly take the warmer climate and cold beer over dead roaches in my food any day. Call me crazy.

Of course, the following morning I woke to a drenching rain. Ah, Scotland!

Fulda days 2,3,4, ??

More than anything, Fulda is a nice little resting point for me before I set off again, so the writing has been put aside in favor of an abundance of food and beer. I hit the road again on Tuesday, but before I leave want to just throw a few random thoughts out there that haven't been able to find their way in any particular posting, so you are forewarned.

1. Nickleback and Rob Thomas. If you have ever spent a millisecond wondering how these two creations can possibly have a career in entertainment when all manner of much more talented artists lay starving half dead on the streets, I give to you ladies and gentlemen, Europe. The only way someone can listen to Nickleback sing and not file suit after hearing it is if they don't understand a single word that is being sung. I had to listen to Anja - smart, beautiful, but obviously deranged - defend a Nickleback song that essentially slammed artists who sell out. Um, hello?   

2. Since we are on music, the one song that I have heard in every country, on every stop of this trip has been "Hey There Delilah". I walk into a grocery store playing music and without fail - and this is true - every time within 5 minutes that song will start playing. I would later check the chart lists and the song hit number 1 in nearly every country I had visited. I'm weighing spending the rest of my trip in countries where the song rated lower than 10th just to lower my odds of hearing it again (Hello, Portugal!!). I was surprised to see that it was number 1 in the US and I thanked God, Allah, Jahweh, Buddha, et al. that I quit listening to radio years and years ago. The song really is quite horrible.

3. With the weather poor, I have no real desire to venture out into the town, especially when confronted with a beer and another piece of cake. Lucky for me, I spent a week here last October in much nicer weather, so with beer in hand can happily work to convince myself that these photos of Fulda's pristine cathedral are from this week and not last year. Still, it hasn't all been drinking and the like. After spending the better part of a shower pulling hair out of my ear canal, I elected for a hair cut, always an adventure in a foriegn country. I was lucky enough to get an attractive english speaking girl and spent the cut answering all of her questions about Canada. Well, really. I also spent one morning helping Dieter finish building his carport, fully safe in the knowledge that by the time it falls down (as the fate of most of my construction projects), I will be safely away elsewhere. And in one of those special, life affirming moments that remind me of how happy I am to be doing what I am doing out here, tonight I caught an episode of "Spongebob Schwammkopf". Best night, ever?

Fulda day 1

Fulda is a town in central Germany, approximately 1 hour northeast of Frankfurt and a few hours north of Munich. During the cold war, this town of 70,000 also happened to be of extreme strategic importance to NATO, being the most easterly point of what was then West Germany. Should the Soviet Bloc attack, the Fulda Gap was thought to be the most likely point at which they would enter. A US tank batallian was stationed here, sacrificial lambs that would pull the US into any conflict concerning the region.

Years later, the Americans are gone and the Soviets have been reduced to bad actors in Command & Conquer games (though to be fair, the Tank Rush was a formidable strategy). Stepping into the brisk night air, I noticed that the downtown sector had already closed (7pm) and snow was softly falling. I would later learn that nearly a half-meter of snow had been dumped on Munich, leaving me happy with the decision to come to town a bit early in what would make this my third visit to this sleepy little German town.

Thomas soon came to pick me up. I had no idea who Thomas was. I had been sitting in a coffee shop waiting for my cousin Anja to pick me up when man approached me asking, "Jacob?"

Thomas it turns out is Anja's fiance, a Bavarian from Munich who had moved up to Fulda for work a half year ago. Bavarians are the German equivalent of Texans, but with their own dialect (even the Germans can't understand them) and of course, a well known propensity to drink. He told me a story of how at one Octoberfest, he was finishing up his fifth liter while the field behind the tent was increasingly filling up with passed out Australians and Italians (hence the name, "Tourist Field"). I took to him immediately. At home, Anja was waiting for us and after dinner, we were joined by her father Dieter, whose couch I would be borrowing for the weekend. I've never met anyone quite like Dieter before. Deep set eyes with an equally deep voice, gray peppering his hair and mustache, always telling jokes and singing. Later, after I thanked him for a breakfast, he quickly replied deadpan, "I am a mother without breasts."

In the morning, Dieter dropped me off in town and I set off to refamiliarize myself with the sights. Fulda is your classic German village, with cobble stoned streets, one proper Cathedral, open air markets, an old city wall, and pubs on nearly every corner. The thing is, in Central Germany you would be hard pressed to find a town that didn't look like this. Its like visiting a postcard, truly quite wonderful.

I walked through the town, mentally noting the coffee shops I would stop in after my brain had completed its freezing process. In some ways, these small German towns represent the picturesque 1950s American towns of Iowa and Wisconsin. Clean and friendly men in ties sit as clerks at grocery stores, butcher shops gleaming bright, people greeting each other in the streets, and not a single Asian in sight. When my mother and sister visited with me here a few years ago, I'm quite sure our net 2 Asian presense set some kind of record. In a few weeks, the square will be filled with tents selling hot wine, but today I had it largely to myself. I noticed a line of Germans standing outside of a bar smoking and later asked my cousin Peter about it. 6 months ago, Germany's first smoking ban went into effect.

"It cannot last," began my cousin. "People will stay home and the government will change."

"But, " I countered, "these laws have all met with success in New York, Ireland, England - all the big traditional smoking centers."

"But not here in Germany. We will stay home before we go out if we cannot smoke."

The sentiment was wide ranged, with many pubs and bars empty, people electing to stay inside or to go to special smoking bars. But I'm not so sure that it won't take. Even Dieter and Uta have banned their children's smoking when they visit, making them go to a small clutter filled room at the back of the house with the window wide open, not the most idyllic place for a smoke. Anja's fiance Thomas has decreed their apartment smoke free, forcing her out into the night air. I hated to point it out, but it looks to be a losing battle (with good cause, no doubt).

Understand, this is a country that loves their vice. It is against the law - the purity law (an unfortunate name, given the history...) - if you brew a beer and add sugar to it. After 11pm, television channels start broadcasting pornography, not even attractive porn, with overweight women in black leather and bald men with apples in their mouths. Just last year, I was on the autobahn in a car hurtling over 160mph, the driver not wearing a seatbelt because face it, all a seatbelt is going to do if you crash at 160mph is give your the parents the option of burying you in two coffins. So the smoking thing isn't going to die down any time soon. I watched in awe - true, God given awe - as my cousin Anja smoked an entire cigarrette in only two puffs.

"You know, " I stated matter of factly, "if you smoked like that in college, people would not have let you near their joint."

Stranger still, the smoking laws allow an establishment to offer smoking if it creates a clear divide between non smoking and smoking (a problem with the older, smaller pubs), but doesn't offer how large that divide has to be. One cafe I wandered into featured 3 tables on the ground floor (non smoking) and almost 30 tables upstairs, each one filled with smoking Germans. A blind person must have decorated it - small pillars with chinese script stood in the middle of the floor, surrounded by a wall pinned with straw cowboy hats. The menu, naturally featured itallian food with cuban drinks. I think the proprietors figured if you are the one place in Fulda that can offer smoking, you can put whatever you want in the place and Germans won't care. I told this to Peter and Anja later and they reacted like I had discovered Shangrila.

"Where is this place? Are you sure? In Fulda?" In the end, I drew them a map, happy to know something about their city that even they didn't know.

Peter is a giant, taller than me by a good 4 inches and outweighing me easily by 30lbs. He also happens to be marryied to one of the tiniest, sweetest, most patient women I'd ever had the pleasure to meet in Katrina, now a proud mother to a huge 4 month old.

Peter and Katrina can best be described by one singular moment. At dinner, as Peter's boy was attempting to suck on his entire fist, Peter leaned over to me, nodded to his boy and whispered, "Fist fucker."

Katrina just rolled her eyes, muttering, "Peter...", picked up her fork, and stabbed him in the leg.

Now if that isn't love, I don't know what is.

Vienna day 2

I wasn't at all happy with the hostel that I had been staying in. The bunks, with their wafer-thin mattresses and slats that had a propensity to crack in half when someone, oh say a 200lb someone, happened to sit down. When I rolled out of bed the next morning, the mattress was lumpier than beanbag chairs at fat camp. The first night I had checked in, the night woman was already sleeping, leaving me no choice but to lay on the buzzer for 30 seconds before she finally roused herself from her slumber to let me in - this was at 10pm, only a half hour after the doors locked.

"Yes?" she asked, as if a guy with a backpack was something new to her at the hostel.

"Do you have a reservation?"

No, I wanted to answer. I just thought it'd be fun to come to this fine city, take the subway to the last stop, and then wait around for the bus in 5 degree weather just to see what kind of accomodations I could find in the hills of Vienna. I didn't yet have the keys, so instead I replied, "God, I hope so."

The next night, a bus filled with screaming 8 year old kids pulled into the lot, the kids proceeding to scream through the hallways like hyenas, doors slamming, with no staff member in sight to quiet them down or, at the very least, shoot them dead. The parents were nowhere to be found, no doubt hiding somewhere, praying for night's relief from these hellspawn. Don't get me wrong, I love kids. But these were Austrian kids - their parents should have them out on a mountain field somewhere, singing and twirling through alpine meadows and not having them reenact the bathroom fight scene from The Warriors.

I put my book down, sighed, and took a moment to compose myself before stepping into the hallway, fully aware that I was about to scare a bunch of kids into fearful submission. It wasn't one of my proud moments. I did though allow myself a smile after having opened the door where a 12 person pillow fight had been taking place and nearly made the whole room pee their pants with just two movements of my finger - one finger to the lips "shhhh..." and the same finger shortly, very casually and innocently drawing an invisible line horizontally across my neck. One kid began furitively pointing at the girl next to him, blathering. "Take her!" I imagine he said in Austrian, "She is the one who did it. Please don't kill me!"

So the hostel wasn't one of my favorites. The same clouds from the previous day were still over the city the next morning and for lack of want of doing the same exact thing as the day before, I jumped on the train for Munich, picking up a copy of the International Herald Tribune along the way. My plan was to spend the next 2 nights in Munich, get on a train to Fulda to visit the cousins, and then on Monday head down to Spain, stopping in France along the way. Here in the paper though was the honest truth - rail strikes crippling France with German engineers prepared to go on strike later in the day. Only something of a serious magnitude could stop the railways in the two largest countries in the EU. In Austria, I had lunch at a place roasting foot long schnitzels. They would then take an equally long baguette, slice off a tip, and hollow out the bread. In went the schnitzel. I realized that I was eating perhaps the most innovative french-german cuisine since the chicken cordon bleu. After that, coordinating a strike to cripple transport in the EU would have been the next logical step in reconcilliation.

I'd be able to get in Munich, but unfortunately I'd be stuck there. I jumped off the train at the Austrian border and executed plan b (eating and drinking), then put together a new plan. The complexities of the new plan required that I put a call into the parents to have them relay the news to my cousins. It would be 5am in Tacoma. Sadly, but with maybe the smallest of grins, I put in the call.

New plan. I'll be arriving in Fulda 2 days early, preferring to wait out the strike with family and free board than without. I jumped on a northbound train and watched with increasing consternation as the passing ground cover went from grass to a few inches of snow. Even with the weather and last second change in plans though, I was more then happy to find myself on a German train.

German trains - the newer ones anyway - are the closest thing a human will come to ever being on the Starship Enterprise (the next generation of course - for the original, I would humbly suggest riding on a Hungarian rail line). Window dividers that slide with a quiet and wholy unneccessary "shhh", captain-style bucket chairs, and even the bathroom doors are automated. Better yet, when it picks up speed and goes around a corner, people tend to walk drunkenly from one side of the aisle to the other. Being Germans, the drunk ones more or less walk straight, their gait offset by the speeding train.

The pride in their transportation system - whether it be by car or by train - has dated back to WWI, when the Kaiser's pre-war plans called for transport times of troops and equipment right down to the very minute. When they decided to just go through Belgium instead of around it, entire books worth of calculations had to be redone, a full time staff kept busy just figuring out train time tables. It wouldn't suprise me at all to learn that they are still using them to this day.

I ordered a coffee, which was fine except for the 2.90 Euro price. After having spent so much time in Eastern Europe, I've developed a keen understanding as far as how much Western Europe is costing me. Its not the value of the Euro that does it, its the shape of the Euro. I have the very same problem in Vegas - you turn in your bills and you are given small, round plastic chips. No longer are you playing with money. The same thing goes for the Euro. Give a 10 dollar bill for a snack and you get all coins in return. Consequently, you don't feel any pain having to fork over 3 coins for a coffee. It becomes loose change at this point. Its not until after you finish the drink that you realize you've just paid $5 for a cup of joe.

So, in honor of facing just Euros at $1.46 to the dollar and Pounds at $2.07 from here on out, this last phase of the trip that I've dub'd the "Dupree" phase, wherein I will use my charm, good looks, quick wit, and legendary humility to ingratiate myself with family and friends (more importantly, their couches) in Germany, London, and eventually, New York, before finally returning to Seattle for the holidays. Its still a bit off, but I'm surprised to see the end of this leg of the journey is within sight.

Vienna day 1

Ah, Vienna. Seat of the world's last true empire, it gave us dancing horses, singing boys, Mozart, Wagner, and Beethoven. SInce then, its given us Schwarzenegger (that's certainly not a complaint - the guy gave us Kindergarden Cop and Twins. What the hell has Mozart given us since the Magic Flute?)

My hostel is a bit out of town on the surrounding hills, affording me a fantastic view of the city below me. There is still snow left on the ground and dry cold stung my nostrils as I breathed, waiting for the bus into the city. Not for the first time since leaving Italy, I wondered why I had left Italy. There was a whole southern half of that country sitting at the 65 degree mark.

Vienna though has an answer to the cold in the form of coffee shops. For the first time since leaving Seattle, I counted 3, sometimes 5, coffee shops on the city blocks downtown. The coffee is served on a tray along with a glass of water and a small brownie. It was heaven. With the skies gray, I had to wait until it grew dark for pictures, but no complaints here, I was more than happy to sit on the inside of the city and look out.

I was hoping to attend the Philharmonic or even the opera (also played by the Philharmonic), but the prospect of standing in the cold, wet dark for a couple hours so I could then turn around and stand for another 3 hours wasn't appealing. Besides, if I felt self-conscious wearing my clothes to the Latvian symphony, I would be downright homely walking into the Vienna Philharmonic dressed as I was. Instead, I opted for a compromise - I took the tour of the opera house.

A laugh escaped me the minute I walked into the tour entrance. Ahead of me were a sea of seniors, all partitioned out by what language they spoke. The largest group were the American tourists, rich looking seniors with heavy fur coats, the ladies with too much makeup.

Once in New York I was at a movie with a friend - there, the "please be quiet" notices always started with a cacophany of distracting noise such as cell phones, people talking, etc. There's also a baby crying, delivered in THX digital quality. Not realizing that this was an ad, an older woman ahead of us whined, "oh no, who brought a baby here?!" I'm telling you this because this was a crowd of about 50 of these women. "When's this program staaaaarting? Where do I put my jaaacket? Why's it soooo cold out??"

Smiling, I stepped onto some steps to get some seperation from this sea of old aunts, thumbs tucked behind the arm straps of my backpack. One particularly extravagently painted woman in a fur approached and started lofting questions my way. I, apparently, was the tourguide. I opened my mouth to correct her, then looked at her clothes again, and played along.

"So, when does this tour start?"
I looked at my watch. "Should start soon."
"ah. What is the performance tonight?"
I looked behind her at the night's playbill and replied, "Pique Dame."
"Oh, why that's Tschaikowski, right?"
"Yes, I believe so."
"Christine, Pique Dame is playing tonight! Say, do you know if there are still tickets available?"
I glanced to the left towards the ticket station where a sign was prominently placed in front of the window and answered, "Tonight's performance sold out"
"Oh...well that's too bad."
"Well, there's always standing room."

I might as well have told her that sadly, no, I had no Grey Poupon. She was about to say something else when the tourguide arrived. I answered her raised eyebrow with a smile and dissapeared into the tour, which by the way, was excellent. I sat in a chair that would cost me about 200 Euros only 2 hours later and wandered backstage, easily twice as big as the performance space.

The weather had worsened by the time I exited the Opera house, so I walked across the street to the Albertina Museum and later through the various wine shops. David Cross, a comedian, does this bit where he retraces the journey of a leaf of gold that was placed on his dessert in some posh restaurant. The gist of it was, some poor schmuck in a Peruvian gold mine slaved away for 2 cents just so a rich guy can pay 2,000 times that just to poop it out later that night. I was reminded of this story looking at a bottle of Austrian Gold, a chardonnay that is littered with flakes of gold throughout. Note to wine lovers: beer people already kind of hate you. No need to make it any worse.

It had grown much colder and my fingers were nearly frozen solid from taking pictures. I wanted a cup of coffee, but these Vienese coffee shops were much too proud to serve their stuff in a paper cup. I did something drastic, something that some people may never forgive me for. I went into the only Starbucks in Vienna and asked for a double tall vanilla latte. Minutes later, I walked out with cup in hand, feeling much like someone would after having masturbated in an adult movie theater; relief tinged with extreme guilt and self-dissapointment.

The night wasn't over yet. Later, looking for dinner, I wandered into a restaurant called "The Night Dive". Now, there obviously is no need to reproach me for going into a restaurant with the name "Dive" in it and expecting pearls. I just wanted to see what a dive looked like in Vienna. Actually, it looks like a dive anywhere else. I had to descend two flights of stairs and go through two fire doors. The restaurant was nearly empty, the bar tender very surprised to see someone actually walking into the place. I looked around - framed inspirational posters featuring dolphins and whales covered the walls. A clear-cased fridge selling juice sat unplugged in a recessed wall, bottles of juice still there. A cardboard cut out of a woman wearing a fruit hat and a grass skirt was laying against it. At this point, most people would probably turn around, but I loved it. I sat down at a table and noticed that in the corner of the bar there was a close circuit tv showing an image of the front door.

I assessed the situation. I was sitting in an empty basement restaurant in dolphin decor with two fire doors between me and the street, with a video camera monitoring the front door, no doubt keeping an eye out for the police or gangsters. The movie "hostel" came to mind.

Still, even with the risk of kidnapping and torture, I was hungry. I ordered the fish with potatos and a glass of wine. The wine arrived first and came with a bit of extra - something was floating in it. Too small for a fly and it was translucent, so I decided it was either grape skin or sea monkeys. Before I could send it back, the fish arrived.

A quick second about cooking in this part of the world. Either the entire animal is ground up and stuffed in an intestine casing or its floured and deep fried. There's a reason there is no Austrian Iron Chef. And the portions are just ludicrous. My German cousin Peter once gave me advice on how to eat the food. "Eat until you are full. Then wait five minutes. Then eat more."

Staring at the two deep fried nine inch filets that arrived, I tried. In the end, I left half of the fish on the plate.
The sea monkeys, I drank.

Budapest day 2

The second day of Budapest was much nicer than the first, with the sunshine slowly waking me up from a bit of a mixed bag of slumber - the bed was nice and I had the room all to myself, but that night I had entered into one of the most stressfull dream types that I have: The Zombie Movie dream. This time I was trying to save a trailer park from zombies, cigarrette smoking moms in bathrobes and curlers fighting valiantly but inevitably, overrun. Sadly, our village Aborigine elder did not make it and we had to burn his corpse before he re-animated.

Budapest is beautiful. The business side is Buda, with modern buildings juxtaposed next to huge columned residences, with a newly pedestrian-only shopping center just having the finishing touches put to it. I started the afternoon making my way up north through the a large park, where I was able to see nationalistic monuments and the coolest public statue ever, Mr. Anonymous, a strider-robed figure who sits on a chair facing what used to be a Buda palace (now a museum). The large moat around the palace has long been drained and the city had officially opened its winter ice skating rink along its bends.

I jumped in the subway and emerged later into the city core, where I sampled some very good Hungarian Goulash, which as far as I can tell, is just spicy beef stew. For this and a cappacino, I paid nearly 2,400!! (or about 4 Euros). Huge clouds had rolled in, giving the skies a very dramatic scene set against the city's many church towers, synagogues, and miniaretes. I strolled south, across the river and into Pest, which set against hillsides and cliffs offers a very different perspective. Crossing the bridge, I was greeted by a very steep hill with a monument on top - its been a while since I took a hike, so up I went. Turns out, this is the Citadel, a German built anti-aircraft bunker. They have since turned it into a museum filled with wax figures. I walked around a bit, skipping the entry fee, and headed back down into town.

By the time the sun went down, I was due back at the hostel to pick up my bags and head to the airport. I hit the buzzer to the door, my keys surrendered earlier when I checked out, and waited. A few minutes later, a young hungarian girl sashe'd her way down the corridor, a thin cigarrettes held in her lips, long dark hair tossed over a shoulder by one hand with the other resting model-like on her hip. She was gorgeous and worse yet, she knew it.

"Yez," she began, cigarette bobbing, "vhat can I do for you?"

Somehow I had fallen flat into a James Bond movie. I even expected her name to be "Holly Christmas" or something to that effect. No, just Flora. I collected my bags and raced back through Budapest, jumping on the train and making it with a minute to spare. Unfortunately, I didn't reserve a ticket and had to find an open seat, which is how I ended up between a pack of Euro-hippies who had smelled much better times and a dog that subsequently pee'd the floor. Ah, Budapest.

The train took about three hours and went by quickly, relaxing except for the whole stinky hippy dog pee thing. I was in Vienna. I searched my wallet - I still had about 600 in Hungarian cash, which I knew would only net me a Euro or so at the exchange desk. Only 2 Euros, but at least I can use it for bus far. I threw in my remaining 50 Danish Kroners, netting me a total of nearly 7 Euros. I handed the money over apologetically, but figured that it was worthless just sitting in my wallet. The Austrian took the cash and wordlessly changed it. He handed the money back to through the slot in the window, barely glancing up at me through his glasses and quipped,
"Now you can buy yourself a whopper."

Austrians.