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7/3

July 18th, 2007

Sleep in until almost noon, very tired, legs still hurting, back a bit stiff. Walk down the main drag to the Royal Palace, then get a bit lost looking for City Hall. It is hot, and I am hungry. I find City Hall, then walk down by the harbor looking for someplace affordable to eat. Oslo is absurdly, just silly expensive, these places want the equivalent of like thirty US dollars for a sandwich. I settle for goddamn McDonalds, but even here the prices are hidden and there is a long line. Finally I find a place that is sane, wandering in in a bad mood but soon I settle down. The Norwegians are fond of burgers and kebab. I have a beef stew with curry and chat with the bartendress, who gives me ideas of things to do. After lunch, I wander down to check out Akershus castle, a cool little fortress overlooking the water. The Norwegian military has a presence here. After this, I walk across town, spot a pool hall and shoot pool for a while (badly once more, I just can’t shoot no mo). Buy a bottle of water for about $250 at the convenience store, then go back to the hostel to rest. More cheerleaders everywhere. Upon reflection, I think the Norwegians are a pretty friendly and open lot, but there seems to be something of a tough guy routine going on here as well, I don’t know, a remnant from the Viking days or something. I go back out again around seven to try to find some dinner. The prices are just outrageous; I go past restaurant after cafe after bar with no luck. I find a kebab place that is affordable. “Do you take credit card?” I ask. This is another challenge, as I don’t have any hard currency (since I am leaving countries so quickly). “Yes,” he says. He runs the card, it doesn’t work. Apparently it is not the right type of card. Exasperated, I locate a place that is pricey but not insane, with a terrace view of the streets. The waiter is a guy previously from Minnesota, real nice guy (as mid-westerners tend to be). We talk for awhile, he fell for a Norwegian girl years ago and now lives here with her and a kid. He sympathizes when I complain about the prices, and tells me that even in Europe, Norway is considered expensive. I have a few tacos and a beer. I leave, walk past a park where I see an overweight homeless woman squat down amidst a crowd of people and urinate in the grass, drawing shocked stares. Later, I see a fight break out on the lawn in front of a church, a bunch of dark-skinned guys just start going at it out of nowhere. There is definitely a rough edge to the place – perhaps there is a substantial income gap between the haves and the have nots. Head back to the hostel, grab a beer and go to sleep.

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7/2

July 18th, 2007

The room is loud overnight, with doors slamming and guys snoring, so I basically get no sleep. I am lying wide awake at 6:30, turn off the alarm before it goes off. A quick shower, pack up and walk across town to the train station, catch the early train at 8:23. I am apprehensive since hearing the news yesterday about the concert, and my concerns are justified, as there are no seats available on the train. However, there are a few pull-down seats in the connecting corridor, so I manage to be able to sit down anyway. Four hours go slow, with the six of us in the carriage all glancing uneasily at each other. There is a giant muscular frat boy listening to speed metal, he twitches impatiently, he is like a gorilla in a cage. There is an old woman with a broken leg, propped up on a bag. There is a backpacker with bad body odor. There is a girl bopping along to the tunes on her ipod, eyes closed, mouth moving. She has unshaved legs and giant orange bushes under her arms. People start to pack into the car at the local stops, it is cramped, barely room to stand. A fellow with a beard and huge bushy eyebrows comes in with a tuba on his back, then another guy climbs aboard carrying a bike in multiple pieces. It begins to feel like candid camera. Another old lady gets on, and I give my seat to her. Amidst the commotion, I manage to pay some attention to the passing Swedish countryside. The flora and vegetation have become much more sparse, more grassland than forest now, red roofed cottages, groups of cows, the sea off in the distance, like a postcard. I get off at Goteborg, intending to transfer to the Oslo train, but again my fears are realized, as they tell me that the train is full and can take no more passengers. They do however direct us to a nearby bus that will take us to Oslo. Myself and the other refugees climb aboard (after a short wait), and we are off along the alternate route. Scandanavian women are undeniably beautiful, by the way. This is not a myth, this is indeed fact. A very large percentage of them are drop dead gorgeous long-legged blondes that look like they have jumped from the pages of some magazine. I saw them on the streets of Copenhagen, and now I am surrounded by them on the bus. I spend a good forty-five minutes just ogling a consumingly pretty blonde from the back, I am hypnotized, my eyes are glued to her, just to watch her put her hair back is a miracle. The blonde sitting across from me has deep blue eyes and a blinding smile and beautiful feet which she dangles all over the seat. She sees my glances (which I am not controlling too well), and teases me, flexing them and posing them in all their glory, leaving me a frustrated lovesick ball of writhing despair by journey’s end. We finally pull into Oslo around six or so, I get out and find my hostel, then walk around a bit. Oslo is supposedly the world’s most expensive city. The prices reflect this, but I would say the people do not. Many of the ones I encounter are rough-looking, almost homeless, heckling and hassling each other on street corners. Perhaps it is just the local area I am in. Upon returning to the hostel, I discover that it has been overrun by screaming teenage cheerleaders – the European cheerleader championship or something is in full swing in Oslo. One of the girls has broken a leg, there is a big hubbub about it. My roommates in the hostel are a Spanish doctor and his young son, who offers me a drawing he did as a present. Later on, I take it and pin it up on the wall using a plastic bread bag clip.

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7/1

July 18th, 2007

Sleep in pretty late, am dead tired, my legs are sore. First I go to the train station to try to reserve tomorrow’s train, but apparently there is a huge music festival that is wrapping up and all of Norway is going to try to get home tomorrow. There is an outside shot I may get stranded in Denmark for an extra day. I am standing in line for the tickets, and a group of young Danes walk up to the counter next to me. After some dialog, one of them mumbles something. “No, you’re an idiot,” replies the guy behind the counter. More mumbling. “Shut up,” exclaims the counter guy. Some intra-Danish spat, highly amusing. Walk out into Copenhagen, take some pictures (Stroget – big street full of stuff to buy, a palace with a fountain, The Little Mermaid – chick made of stone). Wander into a strange area which appears to have been a medieval compound of some sort, embankments surrounded by a moat. At this point I have hiked all over the city for the second straight day and am pretty damn tired, my legs are like jello. Walk back down through a park and back to the hostel. Drink some beers, talk to the Aussie receptionist. Go out and grab some food. Stop at a bar, talk some politics (delicately) with a cheerful Tunisian bartender and his Danish buddy. Denmark does not accept euros, they prefer their own kroners due to the fact their economy is doing so well. The same goes for the other rich countries, like Switzerland and Norway. At the bar, I don’t have enough kroners, so I offer him a combination of kroners and euros for the beer. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. My kind of bar. Then back to the hostel to shoot some pool for a while, and call it a night shortly thereafter.

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6/30

July 18th, 2007

Hop on the early morning train to Copenhagen. I am saddened to be leaving Germany. I sit across from a pleasant old man on his way back to Denmark, he walks with a cane and is very dignified. At the water’s edge, the train actually climbs aboard a ferry, car by car, and we are shuttled across the water. The whole process works like clockwork, no delays, and takes only about forty-five minutes until we are in Denmark. Back on land, the train waiter comes by and offers everyone complimentary fruit. It is looking like Denmark may be as pleasant an experience as Germany was. I hike it in to my hostel in Norrebro with little difficulty. The dorm is a bit like a barracks, but looks serviceable. The receptionist girl tells me there is a place nearby to check out the World Cup, so I head out. Another guy appears to be trailing me, he wants to see the game as well. I introduce myself, his name is Vitali, he is from the Ukraine. He is nice, but very quiet and reserved. He is very tall, and his hair is longish, like mine. He reminds me of my good friend from college – in fact, they could almost be twins. We find a Scottish bar that will be showing the game, except it is about one hundred degrees in there, too hot for homo sapiens, so we walk down the main drag looking for another place. We find a place, I order nachos and a beer, and we watch Germany beat Argentina. Denmark is ridiculously expensive, I soon find out. My money flows like wine. Vitali is not a big drinker, so I am drinking for two. We find an Irish pub for the second game, which is packed to the rafters. Some silly drunk Spanish wench burns my arm with her cigarette, barely apologizes and goes right on warbling to her dopey friends. Her and her equally drunk Spanish friend are both draped over the same guy, who looks pleased with life in general. He doesn’t look like much to me, but what do I know. The Danish seem very easy-going and polite. The bartenders play no games (unlike in the States) and are stand-up fellers. Going north is agreeing with me. After the game, Vitali and I grab Burger King, go back to the hostel and crash.

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6/29

July 18th, 2007

Go out for a walk in the morning around eleven, hit up the sausages and taters again, then stroll through some parks and gardens. See some more giant German ducks, some swans and a few Canadian geese (! long commute, ya?). Hamburg has a nice secluded little pond with a dirt trail around it, that feels isolated from the city, very rural and placid. I take a wrong turn and wind up on the Reeperbahn again, then on a street called Louise-Schroder Strasse, which is my mother’s middle and maiden names together. My ancestors call to me. Stop in at a bar and have a beer and watch the passersby. A black fellow on crutches from England is hitting on a homely German woman shamelessly, he gives her a back massage, tells her she is wonderful, bats his eyes etc. After a while it gets nauseating and I head out. I have walked as much as I am going to walk for today, my legs are giving out so I head back. Drink a warm beer and watch some Wimbledon (no soccer for a change). Bells!! More fucking bells, coming from a nearby tower. They are trying to chase me out of Germany with these things. Then later, a little bird is chirping madly outside my window. She is agitated, panicked, flitting this way and that, and keeps coming back to hover near another window, where a cat stares out at her intently. She keeps at it for hours, even after the sun goes down. Did the cat get one of her young? The chirps are mournful and distraught. I long to help her, but I am helpless as usual. And the globe spins on.

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6/28

July 18th, 2007

Get up and walk around Hamburg, nice town. Supposedly this is the city where my German ancestors were from. I see the Rathaus, the docks, the warehouse district. A German woman sits down with me at lunch at the Rathaus (I have currywurst and taters, fine meal for a boy), she is a hausfrau out to take pictures of the proceedings. You see, the students in Hamburg are demonstrating over some university money issues and the police are out in force to secure the peace, they have uniforms and trucks and water cannons and wotnot, to ensure that everyone plays nice. I tell her that in the US it is thirty grand a year or more, it is the same everywhere. She takes some pictures, then when the fuzz moves on, she continues the chase. I walk along the Elbe river, then up to the Bismarck monument, rest a bit then head out on the Reeperbahn, the red light district and obligatory seedy side of town. I immediately feel more at home. There is a pool hall, I walk in, a man with a gigantic growth on his face says they are not open. I find a dive bar, go in, a few locals and a manic blond German bartender are sitting around the place, drinking. There are two guys in the corner playing cards, one looks like a drunk walrus and the other is a smaller fellow, there is a chick that is basically white trash but is just hot enough to have an angry boyfriend who comes in every so often to yell at her and kiss her. She has her dog with her, the dog rules. He rolls around and chews on his toy. Next to the chick is a very old woman, who sits peacefully with her beer and stares out into space. Every so often the bartender has a shot of Jagermeister. He is feisty, he jumps around the place, gesticulating and telling stories. I drink beers like a machine and work the jukebox, playing all the English songs I can find. The others seem glad to have me there, and I am glad to be there. I sit and drink and listen to the sound of the German language, the sound of humanity around me. A guy walks in looking long-faced, with wet eyes – the chick tells me that he has had to help put a cat down that afternoon and is shaken up. I drink one for the cat. Well, I drink my fill and move on, reluctant to leave my newfound friends. I stumble along the highways and byways, through the acceptable parts of town, feeling anti-social and mean. What a bunch of fucks they all are, hiding in their ritzy apartments and fancy cars. I am embarrassed to be a member of the human race. I stop in at the turkish food stand again, grab another beer for the road, and go back to the hotel.

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6/27

July 18th, 2007

I wake up in the morning very hungover and ennervated. The shower is difficult, brushing my hair is difficult, everything is difficult. Painfully I gather up my things in the backpack and head to the train station. Aboard the train, we learn that there has been an accident, a train has run into an automobile and there will be a delay. The train officials on the intercom are most apologetic about it, they seem to be very embarrassed. A Dutch fellow comes into my cabin on the train, he is extremely nice and we have a nice long talk. I find myself admiring his style, he is soft-spoken but with an alert, competent spark in his eyes. A most agreeable sort, there should be more men like this in the world. Because of the delay we miss our transfer at Osnabruck (he is heading for Hamburg as well), so we head to the snack stand together to wait for the next train and he buys me a soda. The next train comes soon enough, and in a few hours we are in Hamburg. I find my hotel with little difficulty, and spend the evening washing my clothes in the sink, yet again and hopefully for the last time. I am too tired and hungover after that for any more activity, and crash for the evening. No drinking tonight.

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6/26

July 18th, 2007

I get up late, there is somehow a new cast of characters in the room now, including a guy from Kentucky who has been living most recently in Austria. We talk for a while, then I go take a shower. The shower is fairly horrendous, dirty, no ventilation, with standing water on the floor with no place to drain. As is fairly typical with hostels, it is a push-button shower, meaning that every fifteen seconds or so you have to push the freaking button for more water. Afterwards, I go out on a walking tour of the city. There are lots of canals, and the general vibe is laid back, laissez-faire. It is still grey and overcast, and a bit cold. I stop at a good-looking little hole-in-the-wall pub and have a beer. A Danish fellow stops in with his woman. He has a buzz cut and facial protrusions (various clips, pegs, metal things). He is a musician and is playing somewhere in Amsterdam on Thursday. We have similar outlooks on music, I find. Death to Corporate Rock. The bartender is a character, looks a bit drunk or addled in some way, he tells me about a pool hall around the corner which I go and check out. Ten euros per hour, and I play like absolute shit. After that I buy a tall Heineken in a supermarket, take it out on the street, sipping as I go (I had thought this was legal here, although I find out later that this is not the case and you can get fined for it). I stumble upon a park, and sit down in the grass to watch the ducks, feeling generally lost and alone. The ducks play with each other, stop and start, dive underwater, cavorting. Then off to a bar around the corner, fairly dark with a nice long wooden bar top but the drinks are back up to almost five euros a beer. The waitress is cute and she has nothing else to do so she talks to me for a while. Then her shift is over and she is replaced by an even cuter girl named Saskia. The crowd begins to grow, as World Cup is on. I am drinking beers at a rapid pace. A guy from Detroit name Tony walks in, sits next to me, starts making a lot of noise. He has a thing for the bartender, keeps saying her name over and over, “Saskia, Saskia…” He confides in me that he wants to get a whore tonight and get a blowjob. He talks me into going out to a coffee shop to get a joint. I wasn’t going to smoke that night, wot with the recovering pneumonia and all, but what the hell, it’s Amsterdam. Then after the smoke, Tony and I go back to the bar. He gets wrapped up in an animated conversation with some other Americans, and as I am pretty drunk I duck out, intending to head back to the hostel. But I find myself walking past the red-lit windows and I know what’s going to happen. I walk past one particularly alluring blonde and like a magnet I am drawn in. She leads me into the room and shuts the door. “Listen, I don’t really want sex, I just want to lick your feet.” She smiles, is fine with it. An easy trick, yeah. So she lays down and I lay down and do my thing, she seems to enjoy it but you never can tell really. Her feet are as smooth as silk, and I never want to leave. I ask her for more time, pull out a wad of cash and give it to her. I am high on her and the pot and all the beer, I lay wallowing in my ecstasy. After a while she gets a call on her cell phone, “You have three more minutes…” she tells me. I finish up, get up and leave, and discover that I am really drunk, wobbly and light-headed. I head off in what I hope is the right direction, which of course turns out to be the exact opposite direction of what I wanted. After a long wander I eventually find the hostel again, go upstairs and collapse.

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6/25

July 18th, 2007

Get up in the morning, it has rained during the night. Drank a bit too much last night, am feeling hungover and weak. Walk up to the north station, catch the train to Amsterdam. They are out of sandwiches on the train, so I have a waffle (sugar-coated, damn tasty). I ride the train through Holland, trees and fields and turning white windmills under an overcast sky. Pull into Amsterdam, walk out of the station, across the canal and find my hostel on Warmoesstraat. The atmosphere reminds me of New Orleans, it is like a carnival – this is definitely a party city. All manner of coffee shops, bars and sex stores line the narrow street, banners hang overhead. I walk around a bit, discover the canals, which you cross frequently as you wander. I grab a sushi roll at around three, then wander around drinking beers at different places. I settle for a while at The Greenhouse Effect, a little bar / coffee shop near my hostel. The bartender is a chick from England, and is very cheery, almost motherly to the patrons. A bunch of black guys and a few stoners sit in the back room smoking, smoke billowing all around. A guy walks in. “Can I see a menu?” (He means for weed.) The bartendress directs him to the place next door. I get up and wander some more, it starts to rain pretty heavily so I take refuge in the bars and pretty much wind up drinking beer all day long. The World Cup is on, and at one bar the sound system suddenly craps out and the bar is silent. The quick bartender immediately picks up the commentary on his own, “Beckham, now Gerrard…” I head back to The Greenhouse Effect, talk to a bunch of English lads from the isle of Jersey, then go next door and get myself a joint. I go back over, smoke some ganja ya mon, drink some beer and talk to the boys from Jersey. World Cup is still on, the black guys in the back room are whooping it up. I smoke the joint slow, taking into account the reputation of the stuff over here. It would suck to pass out and get rolled, losing passport, credit cards, cash etc. After a while, I decide to go back. My head is floating and my eyes are burning but I feel good. Back at my room at the hostel, there are about thirty Japanese preparing to go to sleep, including one who is already asleep and is snoring like a diesel engine.

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6/24

July 18th, 2007

Get up and hike through Niederrad, catch the metro and wait for the train at the station. I drink a big dark beer at a bar there. A gay train worker sits down next to me, he is decked out in wristbands and rings and earrings and things. I wish I was gay; they all seem so friendly. I drink and stare at my morose self in the mirror. A vague feeling of despair comes over me, I walk to another bar and have another beer. I write a few poems in the notebook, the train comes after a while and I go. A few hours on the train, and I am in Brussels. Brussels is a maze. The streets intersect in all manner of odd angles, no street keeps the same name for more than one block, and all the streets have names that are about seven words and a million characters long. To compound this, none of my four maps bears any resemblance to reality whatsoever – I cannot find one single street that matches a name on any map. Many of the street corners just omit street signs entirely, so I am left to guess. After completely circling the North station once and making no progress (passing a street full of scantily-clad dancing girls in the window booths along the way), I give up and ask a young student couple where the hell I am. Not only do they tell me, they physically walk me to the intersection I need to be at. They may speak French, but the Belgians appear to be a major upgrade from les Francais. I find them to be relaxed, casual, friendly, carefree. No superiority complexes in evidence at all. The city is fascinating, it has cobblestone streets and parks and sharp-angled streets. Grand Place is a huge square walled in on all four sides with magnificent gothic buildings. In the center of it this evening, a full scale symphony orchestra is performing an opera for the general public, free of charge. I walk to the Parc du Bruxelles, a sprawling park off to one side of Grand Place. A free concert is being held in a plaza there as well, it is a hip hop act with rappers and a trumpeter, the trumpeter is pretty good. It is the alternative crowd out in force. The beer is affordable and quite good. Yet another understatedly great city that practically no one ever talks about. Go where the tourist hordes aren’t, I say. Even though pot is not legal in Belgium, it appears that it is at least tolerated or perhaps ignored, because the smell of weed floats around the parks and spills into the streets. Given the proximity to Amsterdam, it isn’t really surprising. The Dutch have the right idea. Free pot, prostitution, gambling, the whole works, America the Free my ass, I come from a police state, the government should be there to protect you from others, not from yourself. Well, tomorrow is Amsterdam, the red lights will be on for two nights. I’m not sure what will happen when I get there. It is not sex I want, it is something even sillier than that. But the urge has been building for some time now. Wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of some hysterical French woman running up and down the hall outside the room, yelling that she will call the police. I don’t know what has happened, but I hear a man’s voice as well. Every so often she disappears, then comes back making even more noise then before. It sounds like she is talking to herself. Finally, I have had enough and get up to investigate, but she has moved down into the lobby on the first floor now to give the reception guy an earful. She looks on the older side, is using a cane of some sort, and sounds quite insane. She keeps this routine up for hours.

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