Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Moments and Reflections from the Road


In 10 days, from February 23rd to March 4th, 2012, my friend Veronica and I embarked on a journey to 5 cities; taking 7 buses, 6 trains, and 4 planes in the process. Our whole trip can't be captured in one short description, but what follows are a few excerpts and highlights from my journal. Note: all quotes are at least slightly wrong.

3:05pm, 2/23/12, Strasbourg, France. Transit to go: 17/17
There is a man playing accordion on our tram to the Strasbourg train station. He’s the first accordionist I’ve seen in 2 months in Europe. Veronica and I decide he is a good omen for the start of our trip. I snap a photo by pretending to take one of Veronica’s head, to be seriously cropped later.

6:57am, 2/24/12, Baden-Baden, Germany. Transit to go: 15/17
We’re sitting on a cold concrete bench, waiting at the bus station. It looks like the sun will start to come up in a few minutes, but for now the German bus station is cast in the glow of half-morning twilight. We sit, munching on a breakfast of home-made mini-sandwiches on local german bread that the hostel staff left for us by the door for on our way out. I’m only half awake, but feeling mostly excited, though slightly nervous that we’ll miss our first plane.
1:34pm, 2/25/12, Barcelona, Spain. Transit to go: 13/17
Dunc, our excellent Irish architect/ free walking tour guide is explaining to us the significance of the plaza we are standing in. 
“Those steps over there were where Columbus walked up to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella and triumphantly proclaimed, ‘I have found a new world!’ then showed off all the great things he brought back. However, he also brought back syphilis, and was the first European to die from it. Little known fact though, is that Queen Isabella was the second.”
This becomes my new favorite fun fact.
10:46pm, 2/25/12, Barcelona, Spain. Transit to go: 13/17
“I’m probably not going to remember your name, how bout I just call you America?”
“Then do I get to call you Australia Jack?”
“Sure”
This was the start of my friendship with Jack, a very interesting 20-something year old man from Australia. We were walking in a herd of other young travelers through the narrow cobblestone alleys in Barcelona’s gothic district, heading towards some bar. 
“So what are you doing in Barcelona, Australia Jack?”
“Well...” then he launched into a story of 6 months of travel, mostly in South East Asia, with breaks in between traveling to work as a waiter or chef for a month or two in fine dining establishments all over the world, and plans to continue doing so for the next 2 years. I was fascinated and pelted him with questions. By the time we got to the bar, I had been just as thoroughly bombarded, but with reasons for why I needed to go Laos.
Australia Jack and I were friends for only about 4 hours, then I never saw him again after that night. But I have some fond memories of Australia Jack. And hey, I’d consider going to Laos.
9:32am 2/27/12 Barcelona, Spain. Transit to go: 13/17
Walking to the train station to go to Madrid:
“Ok, one of the guys who was in our room at that hostel snores louder than anything I’ve ever heard!”
“Yeah, I know. If he was asleep before I was, there was no way I was falling asleep. I actually had no idea that it was humanly possible to snore that loud!”
“I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night last night. You could hear him from the bathroom...”
“It’s pretty impressive.”
“Yeah, it sounded like a trumpet...only less melodic.”
“Mhmn.”
Ahhhhhh, adventures in hosteling.
11:08am 2/27/12 Between Barcelona and Madrid, Spain. Transit to go: 12.5/17
Sitting on the nicest train I’ve ever seen, I’m idly making notes in my journal, but mostly staring out the window, watching the Spanish countryside stream by. Veronica is watching our in-train movie, “Captain America.” (Since when have in-train movies been a thing?)
“Oh no! They just switched it to Spanish! And the subtitles are still in Spanish. Aw, I can’t watch now.”
“Really? Ooh! Now I wanna watch.”
I grab my headphones and plug in to the train’s audio system, then proceed to thoroughly enjoy the rest of my train ride. I pass the next hour and a half watching Captain America dubbed in Spanish and letting my dormant Spanish speaking skills slowly start to resurface themselves. To my left, the Spanish countryside continues to zip by, bringing us steadily closer to city #2.
5:03am 2/28/12 Madrid, Spain. Transit to go: 12/17
“Wow. The streets are actually completely empty.”
“Uh, well, except for that guy up ahead who is cleaning the sidewalks with a giant fire hose or something...Can we make it our goal not to get covered in water on our way to the airport at 5am?”
“Hmm, yeah. Good plan. Let’s go around him.”
3:22pm 2/29/12 Venice, Italy. Transit to go: 8/17
“I love you! I love you!”
We’re standing on the Rialto bridge in Venice and a gondolier passing below (with a full boat of tourists) is shouting up at us.
“Come, jump in my boat! Jump in my boat! We will have a party in my boat. I’ll bring the champagne!” 
We laugh. I briefly consider the jump. It’s about 40 feet. Something tells me the frame of a gondola may not support that kind of landing. The gondola passes under the bridge.
10:19pm 2/29/12 Somewhere between Venice, Italy and Vienna, Austria. Transit to go: 7.5/17
I’m laughing and snapping photos as one of our Japanese train-car-mates tries to give Veronica a back massage in the awkwardly cramped space. We’re sharing an overnight train car on an 11 hour ride with four very excited and friendly 25-year-old Japanese guys, who all graduated one month earlier from medical school and are on a celebratory trip through Europe. 
After chatting a while, one of them asked, “You have health problems? We can help.” We said not really, but with one small mention by Veronica that her back had been hurting earlier, a back massage immediately became top priority. Within a few minutes I was pulling my camera out, unwilling to miss documenting this bizarre and hilarious event.

12:34pm 3/1/12, Vienna, Austria. Transit to go: 7/17
“You went to Moshava? No way, I went to Miriam.”
We’re taking a walking tour of Vienna, and for some reason or other I start talking with the guy next to me, and soon discover he went to the same summer camps as I did and knows many of the same people, as he was in the year above me. His travel buddy and Veronica also started talking, though their conversation quickly became part conversation, part scrabble game (yes, of course there’s an app for that). We exchange travel stories, and he and his friend spend the better part of the next two hours convincing us why we should go with them to Budapest for a day. I must have heard “Come to Budapest!” a dozen times. And the thing is, we almost went.
1:27am 3/2/12 Vienna, Austria. Transit to go: 7/17
Facebook conversation between my friend Ksenia and I:
Me: Yo! Guess what? I just was in a four-way water gun fight in the hostel bar!
Ksenia: what???
Me: It was awesome! Now I’m soaked. And sitting in the lobby on facebook.
Ksenia: good job. How did that happen?
Me: They use water guns to knock shots into jaggerbombs (they balance them on top first and make you shoot them in)
I guess they had a few extra guns and people just started keeping them, and then using them. My friend Matt the funeral home director handed me one, so I joined in.
Ksenia: wait, what?! funeral home director?
Me: one of the guys in my room is a 26-year-old funeral home director from New York. He majored in creative writing at Tulane. Go figure.
Ksenia: hunh.
Me: right?
...
i think my hair is dripping onto this chair.
Ksenia: dude, go to bed.
Me: :P
6:58am 3/3/12, Vienna, Austria. Transit to go: 7/17
The door to our room clicks shut behind us and we start walking down to the lobby to check out.
“Is this real life?”
“I don’t know, but we’re going to Rome right now.”
“Like I said, is this real life? You realize we went to bed less than 2 hours ago after spending half the night talking to a Canadian banker who got recruited to be the hockey goalie for the German national hockey team and a New Zealand golf course lawn manager who’s worked all over the world--which apparently you can actually go to school for and its actually a highly in demand field of work.”
“Yeah, that was ridiculous. A well spent night. Let’s go to Rome. We’ll nap on the plane.”
4:27pm 3/3/12, Rome, Italy. Transit to go: 4/17
“Don’t marry! Never marry!”
We’re wandering around the old city of Rome, when we pass by a middle-aged Italian man playing the guitar. Or at least, he would be playing the guitar if he wasn’t so preoccupied shouting advice to the American man walking by him. He strums disconnected cords intermittently between phrases.
“Go, go back to your wife and be a slave! Be a slave...for free!”
We continue walking, hiding our snickers, lest he choose to give us some advice as well. Behind us, the strumming begins to take the form of something that resembles more of a song.

3:52pm 3/4/12, a small train station near the French border, Germany. Transit to go: 1/17
We have a 1 hour wait for our final train, which will return us to Strasbourg. We kill the time by writing down all our favorite quotes from the last 10 days.
“What was it she said? You must go to the Famada Sangria?”
“Do you mean go to the Sagrada Familla? Cause that’s what she actually said.”
“Oh...yeah.”
“Freudian slip?”
“Yeah. It’s been a long trip.”
5:06pm 3/4/12, Strasbourg, France. Transit to go: 0/17
I’m greeted by my host family as I enter the house, and to my surprise I am still relatively coherent at speaking French. Exhausted and in need of a shower, I give them a brief explanation of how the trip was, assuring them of how much fun I had and how tired I am. They ask if I’ll be joining them for dinner. 
My response? “Si, si, si!”
I immediately caught myself and switched back from Spanish to French, this time saying “oui.” A few minutes later, as I finally went up the stairs to my room, I thanked my host mom for something she had just said.
“Grazie!” I said.
The funny thing is, I don’t even speak Italian.


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