Rodey on the Road

It is my last full day in Europe. I woke up at 7:30 this morning, packed my bags and left the hazy comforts of the Flying Pig. I walked more centrally into the red light district, to my next place of lodgings. Situated between a porn shop and a thai massage parlor, I am staying at “The Shelter”, a Christian-youth hostel. I dropped off my bags and left for the train station, determined to make the most out of my last day in Europe. So I boarded a train and left the country, arriving in Brussels, Belgium . I left the train station without consulting a map, without talking to tourist information, determined to re-capture that feeling that had overwhelmed me at the beginning of the trip, the feeling of something completely new and exciting, of being lost with no hope of recovery, of being utterly at the mercy of something else. Instead I found the powerful feeling of the need to alleviate bladder stress, and learned a lesson- bathrooms in downtown Brussels are hard to come by. So for those of you keeping score, or a list, or a tally of some sort, you can add side of a store on a fairly busy street at noon in Brussels to the balcony and metro garbage can.
Feeling relieved and after fleeing the scene, I treated myself to a belgian waffle dripped in chocolate. I also wanted to see the famous fountain of the little boy peeing, which I felt a deep connection with now, but it was covered in scaffolding and cloth and under construction of some sort, like so many other monuments I had seen. I had decided to turn back as I was in need of a shower and lo and behold, they moved the train station. A couple hours later I decided to settle on the subway and made my way back to the station ,where I caught a train back to amsterdam.

So the plan for the upcoming time frame is to get a dinner, go to bed, wake up at 5:30 tommorrow morning, pack and catch a train to the airport, come home just in time for my welcome back committee’s parade and to ride atop the float that will be used to transport santa later in the year.
That was going to be the plan, but apparently there is a bible study at the hostel. I might be attending that if I can manage to secure a brownie about 45 minutes before hand. See if I can get on the good lords side, or exercise some demons, or something of the sort, whatever it is they do.

The fourth installment in the now entirely inaccurately named, fulfilling the original disclaimers propechy, in a trilogy of posts relating to lessons learned on the road.

1. The words in the other language on the food carton ARE important, do not always trust the picture.
2. Label your food in the hostel fridge
3. It is better to have shoes in rainy and cold weather
4. Getting lost during the day often translates into finding your way at night.
5. Meeting people in the hostel is easier than you think, even if you’ve been doing it for a while.
6. There is nothing like beer to bring people together
7. U.S. soldiers on leave say that they work overseas rather than admitting their occupation
8. Marijuana produces philosophers, sleepers, gigglers and a marine who advised me to pee in comfort as he hadsecured the perimeter.
9. One espresso is no longer enough
10. Chocolate croissants are good in the Netherlands too.
***and for a limited time offer, lesson learned 11**
11. They don’t require ID in coffee shops, despite what the signs may say

09:38- Train arrives in Amsterdam central station
10:11- I arrive at Hostel
10:12- Notice people smoking up in hostel
10:20- drop stuff off in luggage room and leave to wander town
10:25- Offered sex by prostitute in window
10:37- Arrive at Sex Museum
11:45- Leave Sex Museum for Van Gogh Gallery
—At this point in the day, it should be noted that the train station and hostel are at the north end of the map, the van gogh museum is located at the far south end of the map. The Anne Frank house on the west end——-
12:30- Find myself at Anne Frank House, turn around to go to Van Gogh Museum
13:15- No longer on map
13:30- No Change in position, in relation to being on map
13:35- At entrance of Van Gogh Museum
14:50- Exit Van Gogh Museum to go to Supermarket just south of museum
15:24- At train station apparently envelops all of downtown amsterdam
15:35- Arrive at hostel, put stuff in room with 13 other people in it
15:41- Leave hostel to wander
16:00- No longer on map, map deemed useless, and is subsequently discarded
16:38- Enter Coffee shop, purchase coffee
17:00- Writing Blog in internet cafe

So that’s basically how its going so far, amsterdam is an absolutely gorgeous city, the red light district and the coffee shops are as brash and abundant as you would expect, the city is very hard to navigate if your not an experienced and expert navigator and map reader like myself. The things you hear about amsterdam, like the weed and sex are only a small part of the city, the canals, the museums, the buildings…it really is an amazing city. I’ll let you know how things go tommorrow, there shouldn’t be any postings of me under the influence of some herbal remedy, as one must be 18 to go into the coffeeshops, and I am only 17. Then again, trevor is 19…

So I got into a bit of a fight. Eddy was convinced it was going to happen early on in the trip, but apparently I hold out until the last week. It wasn’t much of a fight, so we’ll get to that later. Here’s how the past couple days went. The last day in Athens was spent wandering a bit, going to the airport about five hours before my flight, reading, getting on the flight with the intentions of sleeping in the airport then getting up early to get on a train to Prague. I met a girl named Mya on the plane, she’s from Slovenia and would be spending the night in the airport as well. So I had someone to talk to, and we traded guarding the bags while the other one went to the bathroom/for a wander etc etc. She slept on the bench, I slept on the floor behind the bench, curled up next to the radiator. I actually overslept, as I guess I was so comfortable on the airport floor. I had received an email the night before though from Lucy, a girl I met in the hostel in Florence, and she offered me a free place to stay. She is schooling in Switzerland, so I opted to go for the country covered by my Eurail pass and the free place to crash. Ten hours and no food later, I arrived in Lausanne, Switzerland. I met Lucy and we went to her friends dorm room for some Fondu. It was really good, as there was alot of it, I hadn’t eaten yet, and it was free. Afterwards we played drinking games (with their vodka, again free) and went to a bar for live music. On the way to the bar, there was a little confrontation. A very drunk 16 year old Swiss guy came up to the group of us looking for cigarettes. We didn’t have any and he began swearing at the group. One of the girls started mocking him, swearing back and he started to follow us down the street. We all stopped and he got agressive. He was swearing and getting very close to us and geting more agitated.James tried to talk him down to no avail, so Amy and Lucy tried. He started pushing closer and closer and eventually pushed Amy out of the way and slapped Lucy’s hands out of the way. That’s when Mikey stepped in. I told him, in very plain English, that I didn’t understand a word he was saying but you don’t hit girls, and he shoved me. He was smaller than me, I didn’t move much, but I didn’t shove him back. He shoved me again, and again, and eventually I pushed back. He started swearing, I told him to fuck off, and, get this…he kicked me. He kicked me in the side of the leg. I was so stunned, I never expected it. I laughed at him and asked him, really, who the fuck starts a fight with a kick. He kicked me again, this time higher up and now I knew it was coming. I grabbed his foot in mid air and tossed it upwards, sending him to the sidewalk. He got up again, took a run at me, stopped at an appropriate kicking distance, and I tossed him down again. He was pissed, he started going off in French and reached into his backpocket. I figured we were about to have a little red knife fight on our hands, but it was for a cellphone, he was calling his friends to come and beat me up. Fantastic. His friends showed, I was ready for them but had been led away to let Amy and James handle the confrontation. The friends apologized for the kicker’s behaviour, saying he was drunk and crazy, and we left at the bar. So travel tip, when fighting a swiss kid, dont even worry about watching for the punch, keep an eye out for those feet.
So we arrived at the bar, it was a guy from England on piano and a guy from Brooklyn on guitar. They played requests, including ours which included an array of Beatles and Dylan. We stayed till the end of their set, then left for sleep. My bed is a mattress on the floor of a Dorm room, and it is so comfortable and warm…and cheap. Tonight we are doing Fondu again, in honor of Lucy’s friend Jaqueline who is in the room tonight too, who I also met in Florence. Just a few days left of the trip, headed to Amsterdam at some point in the next couple days, then I’m catching a plane to the T-Dot and then to the wilds of Waterdown.

The third installment in the trilogy of tidbits of info picked up along the road.

1. Hitler, evidently, was a speed freak.
2. Do not trust the Greek waiter when he says he knows something good and cheap for four young people: he is lying.
3. No public transport system should be navigated before 9 in the morning, no matter what the language.
4. You can be in front of the greatest temple ever built, and be more impressed with the baby taking its first steps beside you.
5.Chocolate Crossaints taste good everywhere.
6. Drunken political activists should be handled with kids glove and a slightly patronizing tone…in every country.
7. Drunken hobos who want to push you off the side of the cliff are bad…in greece at least.
8. The price of a hotel room is negotiable, especially if the person is made aware you are willing to sleep in the street.
9. If you need help, just ask someone, its the quickest and easiest way to get information, and it will often lead to more.
10. Stepping out of a hotel/hostel by yourself in the morning into a strange city is a very different feeling.

The past couple days in Athens have been interesting. During the day we spent our time doing controlled wanderings the first day, as we got in late enough that after a quick bite to eat the sun was setting, so we just strolled town a bit. We sat down in a little square, probably not in the best area of town, and were approached by three individuals. (By we I mean Me, Tara and Scott and Katie, a couple from London who were on the train with us and are staying in the same place). The three individuals were two guys, and one of the guys girlfriends. It appeared at first as if the girlfriend was trying to dissuade her boyfriend from approaching us, but he was going to talk to us one way or the other. We were a little worried at this point. Thank whatever religious deity you choose to that he approached me first. He asked where I was from and I said Canada, so he automatically assumed we were all from Canada. He proceeded to tell us how he was born in Palestine, moved to Lebanon and now has political refugee status in Greece. He went on in detail about how Bush was responsible for killing his father and brother, Bush and Sharon, and how he hated Greece because the people were close minded and “resisted” the integration of the muslims. At this point we were glad he hadnt asked Tara where she was from, and even the Brits were leaning towards being Canadian at this point. He says that he feels like he is being treated no better than the stray dogs by the local greeks, and that he hates this fucking country. He stressed the fucking part of fucking country, and made sure we used it whenever we reffered to Greece. His friend apparently was going on about how he agreed with what Bin Laden had done, but he himself said he hated bin Laden and thought he was just as bad as Bush. The conversation continued for almost half an hour, he was a little intoxicated, but passionate about what he was talking about and glad to have found a group of Canadians to talk to. He eventually left, and we went to bed.
The next day we went sightseeing. The acropolis, the pantheon, Ancient Agora…we saw statues, buildings, dating back 2500 years ago. I saw the places where the great thinkers, the original concepts of todays world and governments, were thought up and brought about. I revelled in the remains of one of the greatest civilizations of all time. By the end of my sightseeing I was begging for somewhere to sit and the sight of an intact building was an oddity. We napped and met up again with Scott and Katie to bring them to this rock face/cliff that is just under the Acropolis and overlooks athens and the surrounding hills. It was a beautiful sight, the city all lit up, and we were perched close to the edge enjoying it, me being the closest to the edge with my legs dangling over the side. We were talking and we heard a voice behind us tell us that we made him physically sick. I turned and there was an obviously intoxicated, homeless/hobo man with a bag in his hand. I expressed my sympathies for his sickness very subtly, as I was getting a bad feeling about this guy. We were high up on a rock face, with more pointy rocks below, and the rock was marble or some other kind of very, very slippery rock. It was hard enough to stand and walk on it in the day without slipping a little, let alone running from a hobo at night. He made a stumble at Katie and Scott pulled her away, they got up and started walking. He started stumbling towards me and had me basically cut off, and we weren’t sure if he was going to push me off the edge or not. He informed us that we would not like his presents tonight and to get the fuck out of here, I agreed that these presents would probably not be enjoyable and I thought it sounded like a good idea to get the fuck out of there. So I did, avoiding being pushed off a rock face, but then he made his lunge at Tara. He was right behind Tara when I grabbed her arm and led her out, and we headed towards the stairs to make our way back down to the road. He stumbled towards another group of girls, calling them very inappropriate names, broke into a quick rendition of “aint no sunshine when shes gone” and then he turned towards us again. I was watching at the top of the stairs while the others were down at the bottom, as I wanted to see where this all was going. With surprising speed and agility he started for me, and I decided I could wait till it came out on video to see the ending. We started down the hill and he started down after us, so we took a little side street/back alley and never saw the homicidal hobo again…hopefully.

Anyways, today is Friday. I was up at 5:30 this morning to take Tara to the port where she is leaving from to do some Greek Island hopping, and tonight I fly to Berlin to either go to Prague or I may be headed back to Switzerland where there may be a possibility of free accommodation with someone I met in the hostel in Florence. Other than that, Amsterdam next week around tuesday or wednesday, and this time next week I will be on my way home.

T-7Days

I got into Greece today. Tara and I took the ferry from Bari to Patras (this time on purpose, no backtracking to Corfu) and then got on the train to Athens. On the ferry I noticed a few things: one being that a seat on the deck is different in October than in August. In August a seat on the deck involves meeting other travelers, playing cards, drinking and sleeping on the deck. In October it means finding a free airplane style chair somewhere below deck, and playing cards at the bar until one is tired enough to sleep. We did that after killing a couple baguettes and some nutella which served as lunch and dinner. Another thing I noticed is that I left my shoes in Rome, looks like my bag just got lighter as I will be sporting the ever popular flip flops for the duration of the trip (some of you may remember them as the ones I wear every single day, or as the ones I wore to prom). Another thing I noticed is that I am too big to sleep in a supposed airplane style chair. These seats do not recline, they are uncomfortable and too closely spaced for me to sleep. My night was spent on the floor after I crawled underneath the seats and curled up there for the night. I got stepped on once or twice in the morning, but I managed to sleep.

Greece is cheap, alot cheaper than anywhere else I’ve been, which is a very very good thing considering my bank card has crossed over to the dark side and become one of satans minions that refuses to dispense cash. Oh well, c’est la vie.

So tommorrow I may go to delphi, I may stay in athens. I have a flight booked to Berlin, I may find out when that leaves and so on, and other than that, I realized today that I leave on the morning of the 21st, so really I only have 8 days of travel left, if I count tonight, which I wont because I am feeling pessimistic about my lack of time left here, so one week left of travel. Over a year of saving and planning, months and months of buildup, two months on the road and it all comes down to the next seven days. I have no choice but to make the best of them and plan for round two.

So maybe my post last night was done in haste, it looks as if I will not be heading north but instead I leave in a couple hours to get to Bari, Italy again, the place of the famed ferry port, to catch a ferry on route to Athenia, where I will be until Friday when I will fly to Germany to catch a sleeper train to Prague, and then from Prague to Amsterdam, and then from Amsterdam home.Yes, that is the itinerary, and as I’m sure we all know, it is set in stone. So the countdown is on, T-10 days, and then I will be back in the wilds of Waterdown.

The last post didnt really express what I have done as of late, and as I have time to kill right now, I will tell you about my time in Rome. I arrived in the pouring rain, mcdonalds lady etc etc. I was meeting Tara but I had no idea when she would be in or where she was coming from or if she was going to make it or what. I took a chance and went to the train station and bam, she was on the train that I was sitting at the track waiting for. It was difficult, looking for Tara, as she is of greek descent and I was waiting for a train coming from the southeastern coast of Italy, but I found her nonetheless.We wandered the streets for a while, found a weird little brass band playing and had some meat sandwiches. The next day we checked into the next hostel,which isn’t a hostel at all but a campsite about half an hour outside of Rome. The plus is that no tents are required as there are cabins. The cabin we stayed in was bare walls, a mattress on a metal frame, a rickety wooden bookshelf to put your clothes on and such, and a light. It was probably 8ft by 8ft but lord was it cheap. I didnt even get a chance to sleep in it that first night, because we met some other canadians who were celebrating thanksgiving by going to a blues club that had live music. We tagged along, but we missed the show, so we ended up at an Italian Dance Club until 5 in the morning, didnt get back to the cabin until 730, then I went to bed and by 1130 I was training towards the Vatican. Two hard days of sight seeing followed by laundry last night and me buying a pair of jeans, and hear I am, en route to Athens.

T minus 10 days.

Im in Rome. Yesterday I spent the day seeing some of the tourist things; the Vatican, Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, lots of churches, and finally I arrived at the Spanish steps. I arrived just before sunsent, and as I sat down, I listened to a pair of Italian men playing guitar and singing various songs including coldplay, greenday, italian language songs and familiar songs from a few years back. The sun set over the rooftops, there were crowds of people walking and sitting enjoying the end of a beautiful day, the music of the guitars drifted through the air and it happened, the very climax of my travels itself, a moment that I’ve had a few times and is the reason I keep going. The feeling that at this moment in time, all is right. It is more than a feeling, far stronger than an inkling, it is the knowledge that I am content, and at that particular moment, there was nowhere else in the entire world I would rather be. That is the highpoint of travelling, it is what keeps me going place to place. It is the ultimate goal, and the trip is but a quest to find it and hold onto it for a time in each country I visit. I’ve never had that feeling as strong or as often as on this trip, and it is still hard to come by even here, and it is what will keep me travelling my entire life.

I went to the bank machine today, it said my card was out of credit.It wouldnt even give me 20 bucks, but it would give me 10 bux two times.I hate banks. My plan was to leave Rome tommorrow and skip germany and head to Croatia. From Croatia I would head to Prague, and from Prague to Amsterdam.I’ve had a massive yearning to go to Croatia since near the beginning of my trip, and two days ago I had decided to do it.Tonight as I was walking back up the highway to my camp ground I decided that with train schedules and money troubles, I would only be able to spend a couple nights in Northern Croatia,and I wanted to see it all. So instead I will be making my way to Prague for Friday at the latest, then on to Amsterdam next week, and then home in 11 days. Everytime I look at the date, I get a panicky feeling of not being able to fit it all in and just this fear that I wont ever see it all. It is irrational and a waste of time, but it happens, so I’ve promised myself I am returning here, to visit all the places I have been and everywhere I missed. Hold me to it.

Never Again. I’ll come back to that in a minute.
So the plan to watch the sunset went over well, four of us, lucy, michelle, jaqueline and myself all climbed the steps up to the hill to watch the sun set over the rooftop. It wasn’t as spectacular as last time, but it still was something I would not want to miss, and the cold heineken as I was resting on the steps made it all the more appealing. We headed down into town to stop by Happy’s, this wonderful little store where the man sells bottles of wine, three for ten bucks. I walkd in, said hello to happy, asked him how he was doing and how business was, and lo and behold, we were allowed to choose from the wines that were three for 12 euros and still only pay the 10. Happy is a great man. So we started sipping the wine slowly, I was very tired and didnt think that the bottles we had purchased would be finished by the end of the night. By eleven thirty Adrian and I (an aussie guy at the hostel) were back at Happy’s picking up three more bottles, except Happy gave us a fourth one for free and was offering us all kinds of water and stuff. We refused on the grounds that we could not accept any more generosity from this kindly fellow, and also that the water would inhibit our ability to lose our inhibitions. So we played kings, and I thought, hey, kings with wine is no problem, I don’t even have to watch how much I drink, it’s only wine.
The night progressed through two full games of kings, one with a group of japanese guys and by the end of it, pictures were taken that I didn’t know were being taken, there was surprisingly little wine left, especially since it was mostly me and adrian splitting those last two, and I observed a family playing monopoly for a solid forty five minutes. Which brings me back to my original point: never again.

I woke up 15 minutes before my train was scheduled to leave, I packed, dressed, said my goodbyes to everyone and ran for the train. I made it to the station 1 minute before my train was scheduled to leave, and five minutes later it actually arrived. I spent the train ride to Rome in not the most pleasant of mind sets, and upon my arrival I could not find my hotel or the street. I did three full laps to try to find the street, and it was not there, the Italians must have misplaced it. I later learned that the street I couldnt find was the very large, main street leading away from the station, but evidently the morning after is detrimental to my already shaky ability to read a map.

So I went to the mcdonalds to get some grease to calm my stomach, and I payed for my hamburgers and waited. The lady at the cash took three more customers, then turned to me and asked what I wanted. I told her I had already payed, she said she didn’t remember me, and that I would have to produce a receipt. I do not remember being given a receipt and I was adamant that I was not going to let my two dollars slip away on this one. I was in no mood to argue, or in no condition to listen to her raised voice, but I still managed to upset an Italian woman, something I was hoping I could avoid. The voice grew, the english disapeared in favor of hand gestures, and eventually to prove me wrong she opened up the receipt dispensing apparatus on the cash register and saw that indeed, I had ordered my hamburgers. Without a word she went and got them, put them in a bag and thrust them at me, not looking at me at all. With all the strength I could muster I gave a loud Grazie and left to eat.

I found my hotel, I went and got some water, it was pissing down rain so I slept for a couple hours. I am supposed to be meeting Tara today but I do not know when she gets in or if she will find the hotel, as it was very difficult for me. The plan for tommorrow is to find a place to sleep, go do some sightseeing and basically, just do the touristy thing for a while. I guess I should pick up another camera…