From Africa To Russia

Head out in the morning on the metro into Frankfurt, once again nicer than expectations, a la Madrid. Whenever a lot of people talk a place down, I am almost always subsequently impressed. The Romerburg is a charming little square, as are the buildings and churches that surround it. A little brass band plays a tune as I walk through. Earlier in the day, I had stopped to grab a sausage (the Europeans often eat on the street standing around tall tables). A little kid rushes by with a pack on his back, and gets a strap caught in a truck door. I have to disentangle him before he is on his way again. It is a humorous little episode. I walk up and see the Eschenheimer tower (cool, but out of place there rising up out of the road), walk down the Zeil and see the shops and touristy stuff. I get another dizzy spell where my head swims and I have to sit down and rest. I have a little cup of beer and some potatoes at a stand and get scammed once again on the euros. Walk back along the river, and then up to the train station, on one particular street the girls come out of doorways, “Want a massage?” Across the river on the metro, then back to the motel to rest and recharge, watch a little World Cup (for a change). Am reading my way through ‘Big Sur’ now – Kerouac was goddamn brilliant. His hunger for life inspires me. Walking back, I pass the ‘shanty town’ again from last night. A kid is pruning the hedge, I ask him about it. He tells me it is actually a vacation spot of sorts, where people come to live simply for a while, plant gardens and relax.

Wake up, pack up, head to the train station, catch the train to Frankfurt (with a transfer at Basel). The fellow selling beer and sandwiches on the train is annoyed when I try to pay him in Swiss francs. No shit sherlock, I don’t want them either, stop giving them to me in the first place and I’ll stop giving them back to you people. When I get to Frankfurt, I take the metro to Niederrad, and then hike it in a bit to the motel. As with all the other stops in Germany, because of the World Cup I was unable to get a hostel here and have booked a motel instead. It is a couple of miles from the city proper, south across the river. My map is a bit faulty, and I have to ask directions a couple of times before I find it. But when I do find it and my room, I find air-conditioning. Blessed cool air. A note on European windows: they are very cool. You can open them normally sideways, or you can turn the handle a ratchet further and just have the top lean down. I rest for a bit, then go out and get some sushi, a bit pricey as usual. I meet a Californian named Vaheed, who is originally from Iran. He joins me at my table. He has been to many unusual countries, Paraguay, Bosnia, here and there. He was mugged by the frogs in Nice, had his nose broken. I tell him about the knife fight. Vaheed is a horny devil, keeps talking about the beautiful broads in Eastern Europe, as well as an ‘underwear party’ he has been to recently. We eat and drink, then back to the hotel he is staying at for a nightcap. Walking back, I insist on trying to prove that my faulty map was actually correct, stubbornly march across some train tracks and get lost. I wander through some sort of European-style shanty town (little wooden shacks surrounded by gardens and swing sets), then climb a fence to get back to the motel.

Wake up early to the sound of the alarm. Actually it doesn’t involve much ‘waking up’, as I have been lying away the whole night in the ninety degree heat listening to the impossibly deafening din of the traffic passing just outside the window. I shower and dress quickly: today is the day of the big trip up into the Alps, a tour I have booked, ‘Jungfraujoch – Top of Europe’. I take the local train up to the station once again, find the spot where the bus will arrive. Sitting on the curb, I am overtaken with lust as a pretty woman in a sundress stands next to me and begins taking her shoes on and off playfully. The bus arrives and we all get on. Once again quite an international cast of characters, a couple of contingents of Indians, a bunch of Japanese, a few American and German stragglers. Our tour guide is a diminutive little Thai fellow named ‘Kid’, who talks to us through a microphone (rather inaudibly) as we head out. We pick up a few people in Luzerne, then head to Interlaken. We get out for a half an hour, I go out into the expansive park there and take a few pictures. I feel like the male ‘Heidi’, standing amidst mountains and fields and sunshine. I am tempted to yodel. Back on the bus, we ride for a bit more and then board a curious yellow train which starts to climb up into the mountains, using some kind of gear and pulley system, I think. The landscape quickly becomes dramatic. We are surrounded by steep-sloped valleys and snow-capped peaks and meadows filled with wildflowers. People throw themselves from side to side of the train, snapping photos desperately. Kid the tour guide is beside himself, he is on fire, he runs this way and that, up and back shouting out instructions on what to take pictures of, where to look next. He is a natural character, and I like him. He appears to very much enjoy his job. I also suspect that Kid is a bit light in his loafers. Every so often, he grabs me and insists that he take a picture of me with my own camera, in different poses, leaning back into Mount Eiger in the distance, giving the thumbs-up as we pass a meadow, etc. We soon disembark this train and hop on another, which climbs steadily and then enters a tunnel. Before we know it, we are at nine thousand feet in elevation, then ten thousand feet. We step out for a moment at an enclosed observation deck to acclimatize. It is cold, and the mountain peaks all around are covered in snow, it is like another world. And then we are at the summit, wading through snow and gazing at Mount Eiger looming to one side, a glacier sliding down a valley to the other. Even in the mist the views are overwhelming, and no amount of picture-taking can capture this, so I give up trying. We stay at the summit for lunch (about $100,000 for a plate of fries), then head back soon after. I have a bit of a nap on the way back. When we return, it is past eight and beginning to grow dark. I head back on the train, then back at the hostel I run into one of the guys I had just seen on the tour, John from Colorado, so we watch the World Cup game together and I drink beer.

Wake up, pack up and head for the train to Zurich. Get to station, bathed in sweat (is warm), sit down and get a beer. The waitress is extremely friendly, looks glad to see me. I drink a bit, and suddenly a feeling of extreme elation comes over me. I sit and just smile. I am in Germany, everything is fine, I can continue. I look around me, everything and everyone looks interesting. I go and walk around the train station a bit, it is a great train station, bright and airy and beautiful. It didn’t appear that way the other day, due to the manner in which I arrived. There are no seats anywhere, however, so I sit on the floor and wait. I chat on the train with a friendly Aussie, we wile away the hours pleasantly. You can almost always count on the Australians for good conversation and a few beers. Roll into Zurich around four or five pm, take the local train south to the youth hostel, the damn thing doesn’t stop where the info guy said it would, so I have to get off and take the same train again in the opposite direction to backtrack, and this time it stops. I tell a teen-aged girl about it, “Well are you in a hurry?” she asks. “Then don’t worry about it.” The hostel is a nice big place, widescreen TV and ping pong and pool and a million rooms. I try giving Thomas from the other day a call, but can’t get through to him. Oh well. I ditch my pack and head back on the train into Zurich to explore a bit. The city is pleasant and clean, quaint, almost utopian, but everything is EXTREMELY expensive, the worst yet on the trip. They also appear to prefer Swiss francs over euros. I see a few churches, walk down the ritzy main drag (jewelry stores, designer clothing, banks, watches), then spot a big red sign down a side street: ‘BAR’. Perhaps a place to relax and get a bite to eat without paying a fortune. I go in, it actually looks pretty upscale, and the waitress radiates ‘French’ as soon as a walk in. She is a pretty, bird-like little thing that looks mad at the world in general, with cold, staring blue eyes. She turns her nose up at me, refuses to even look at me. Hey baby, I’ve been carrying a pack on my back all day, what do you want from me. I ask her for a menu, she doesn’t understand English. She is utterly irritated at everything I do or say, no matter how I try to do or say it. Since I can’t understand the menu and can’t get any form of assistance, I point at something and guess. She brings me five small meatballs in a little cat’s saucer, to go along with my beer in the long, narrow flute glass designed to look large while holding as little beer as possible. The bill: thirty euros. I walk out of the ‘bar’ feeling diseased, like I am covered with lice, I want to go take a bath to wash it off. Completely unexpected from Switzerland. But the people on the street seem peaceful and comfortable and well-mannered, and I mentally resolve to not let one bad experience spoil the whole thing. I walk down by the water, through a park and wind up inadvertently hiking the whole way back to the hostel. I am tired, and shortly thereafter I turn in.

Next morning, get up and go out to explore Munich, baby steps. See the Marienplatz again, walk towards the big gate. There are lions everywhere in Munich, stone lions, of all different colors. I eat some raspberries at a stand, then angle north and come to Odeonsplatz. Large statues within a greek-style building to the south, a nice garden to the east. Munich is bright, spacious, cultural. I stroll through the garden, and take a rest, then head south through side streets, looking for the Hofbrauhos. I see a sign for it to the right, I follow it. Then another to the left. This doesn’t jive with the map, which shows it at a different place, but I’ll bite. After a while, I realize the signs are taking me in a tight circle, going nowhere. I use the map and find it immediately. The Hofbrauhos is a large, slightly loud, fairly touristy beer hall in the center of Munich. There is a band playing traditional German music, rooms and side rooms and terraces going every which way, lots of beer and people spilling everywhere. I sit down, get a giant dark beer and some sausages and sauerkraut and enjoy the revelry. A German couple comes and sits at my table. They don’t speak much English, but we use sign-language with good intentions and everyone enjoys themselves. The beer is great, I am feeling fine, back on my feet it seems. All systems go. The Germans as a whole seem to be efficient and polite, I am impressed. In the evening, I take the metro up to Olympiapark. I believe this was the site where the Israeli hostages were kidnapped at the Olympics some thirty-five or so years ago. There is a giant metal spire of a tower, and a few intricate pavilions placed here and there, the roofs composed of adjacent plastic squares. At the center of the park, of course, is a gigantic TV screen reaching up to God, and a mob of people sitting on the hill watching the World Cup. There are dozens of food stalls along the way selling various goodies at high prices. I am tired of spending money, so I buy nothing, stroll around a bit and then head out. There is a fair amount of security and bag checks at the entrances. A pond near the bus entrance has the largest ducks in the history of duckdom, they are the Arnold Schwarzeneggers of the duck world, they pump eet aaap, you girlie maan. They are unconcerned with everything, sitting munching grass, and only scatter when a swan comes rushing over to confront them.

Day two of sitting around, the room is hot, I am sweating and bored. I am feeling a little better, but perhaps simply because I am not moving. Tomorrow I will venture out into Munich to test my stamina. If all is well I will continue, but if I collapse again I may have to throw in the towel. There are a series of bells that ring from towers right outside my window, they have been ringing nonstop for two days now. They chime the hour, the half-hour, every fifteen minutes. Every hour or so, one bell will ring continuously for about twenty minutes, ‘gong gong gong gong’, with no interruptions. Then when this stops, about three minutes later three bells will start ringing together, staggered and rapid fire ‘gong-g-gong gong-g-gong gong-g-gong…’ for another half hour or so. Just when you think they have stopped, they always have to throw one more good one in at the end. This has been going on continuously all day long, and is maddening. I am going to go up there and throw the fucking bell guy out of his tower. Go out to get some food around noon, find out the supermarkets in Europe are all closed on Sundays. So I do a bit of exploring locally, find the Marienplatz and the hordes of Brazil-shirt-wearing tourists, and find a little place with outdoor tables in a courtyard to sit under the trees and have some sausages and beer. It is true, German beer is damn good. A guy and a kid ask if they can sit at the table with me, since all the other tables are taken, then a couple comes up and does the same thing. It turns out the two guys are brothers, and they are all part of the same group. They are from Switzerland and are there for the World Cup, they have tickets for the Brazil match at six (Ronaldinho is the big Brazilian football star by the way; he has large teeth). The one fellow’s wife is Chinese, but now lives with her husband in Switzerland, and plays for the national women’s soccer team. Her legs look quite strong. The kid is a family friend, born in India, and he is very grown up and well-spoken. After a while, he puts a hand on my shoulder, “So what do you think of Bush?” I give him the same neutral, non-informative spiel I have been using all throughout Europe, not wanting to upset anyone one way or the other. The first guy is a big, jovial fellow who has wild hair and earrings and a big waist and a wife and a house in Columbia and who is great fun, he guzzles beers and we chat and laugh. We do a drinking cheer together multiple times. I have another beer. I am no longer feeling faint like the other night – I must be getting better. They tell me that life in Switzerland is very comfortable and safe and relaxed, that people don’t lock their doors. Sounds nice. Then, ironically, the kid asks me what Detroit is like, out of nowhere. I tell him it isn’t exactly like Switzerland. (I am from New Jersey, but have been to Detroit.) Thomas the big Swiss has a good repartee with fraulein waitress. “The Germans love the Swiss,” he tells me. “They think we are all stupid.” He gives me his card and tells me to give him a call when I get to Zurich.

Lay in bed all day, taking my medicine and waiting for improvement. Have no energy, if I get up for five minutes I have to lay back down again. Rained last night, only the second time on the trip. I manage to get to the store for some groceries. In the unlikely event that you might actually want to take your groceries with you when you leave the store, they charge you extra for the plastic bag. Later on I watch a documentary on kidnappings in Brazil.

But in the morning, I feel a bit better, and head out on the train to Munich. At the station, a nice polite man in a uniform comes over and directs me to the proper counter. The man at the counter goes over every detail of the times, the transfer, etc. What a world of difference from southern Europe, where you are lucky to get any sort of assistance whatsoever. Hop on the train, sparsely peopled. A pretty girl pulling the snack cart, innocent smile. Wish I had that smile. She shows it only to the grandmother in front, not to me. That sort of thing is so easy for some people. I got polluted somehow. Ride the train towards Germany, feeling kind of worn out and shitty. Transfer at Salzburg, only eight minutes between trains make it in the nick of time. Find my seat in the cabin. It is a little cold in there, and I put on my fleece. My fever starts coming back, now I am sweating so I take off my fleece but now my forehead is burning. I realize now that there is something seriously wrong. I have never felt a cold like this. My whole body is burning, my eyes are burning, I am getting tunnel vision. Thoughts turn towards getting help. Rational concerns such as insurance coverage in a foreign country quickly fade, as this now begins to feel like a life or death situation. Stories I have heard flash through my mind about fevers running too high and causing blindness, my mind starts playing tricks on me and I start to panic. I count the minutes until the train is due to arrive, I pace back and forth, afraid to sit still. Finally the train slows and comes to a stop. I lumber off to find a train worker at the front. “I need a hospital,” I tell him lethargically. I am having trouble speaking. He looks perplexed, then points me to an Information sign. I look for Information, I do not find it. I ask a man at a stall, he sends me to the ticket counter. I stagger to the counter. “I need a hospital, a doctor.” He directs me to go down that hallway, turn left then right etc. I am tempted to just collapse to prove that I mean it. I feel very close to passing out. I give up on the train station and stumble out into the street. I ask a woman in a shop, she doesn’t know what ‘hospital’ means, I ask a man on the street, he doesn’t know where one is. I am going to die on the street in Munich, and people will just walk over the body. I see a line of taxis, get in one, and he understands and drives me to a nearby hospital finally. I find a man behind a desk, “I need help.” “Make a left, walk for a while then another left…” I am truly barely conscious. I find the proper area, throw myself against the desk in this, the emergency room, lay my head down, panting. There is no one at the desk, and the nurses ten feet away just glance over indifferently. After a few minutes I actually have to motion to one, and then she comes over. “I am sick,” I tell her. She looks at me, apparently she doesn’t believe me despite the fact I am sweating profusely and in mid-collapse. “Well, we don’t have any beds right now, you’ll have to sit in the chair.” So I sit in the chair. She leaves and does some other things for a while. My vision is slipping in and out, I am holding my head. I am just wishing I was at home again, thousands of miles away in my nice comfy bed. I want to see my family and Olga one more time, I never thought I’d die in Europe. It is like Requiem For A Dream, a waking nightmare, I am having trouble believing it is real. After a while, she comes over, puts an IV in me to add some liquids. My mouth is complete cotton, and I feel like I have no fluids left in my body despite having drank water, soup and tea all day. After the IV she takes blood and leaves again. After a couple of x-rays, the doctor comes in. He is about 13 years old. He tells me that the blood tests have been analyzed, and that I have pneumonia. After all the mosquitos and the stagnant water in Venice, I was almost expecting malaria, but not the case, it is pneumonia instead. He gives me a prescription of antibiotics and sends me on my way. By this point, they have given me a full three packets of liquids through the IV and a few hours of rest, and at least I am able to walk again. On the way out, Doc Jr. tells me that the doctors are all on strike in Munich; only the emergency wards are operational. The nurses now make sense – the B team, the skeleton crew. I take a cab to the hotel, and, having discovered my phone card was only valid in Spain (where it never worked either), I brave the hotel charge and make a few calls back home to tell everyone of my trials and tribulations. What a fucking day. The hotel kindly sends out to get my prescription filled for me (but of course not footing the bill). I walk out into the street, weary beyond words, to find some food. I realize I have not eaten solid food for some time now. I grab some sushi from a take-out window. How ironic if, having survived today, I were to die now from eating bad sushi, I kid myself. But the fish goes down easy, and I finish a truly trying day by slowly washing my dirty clothes in the sink.

I wake up feeling worse than the night before, I can barely get out of bed. I lay there until about noon, and then painfully drag myself through a shower and out into the street. I am hurting, but I’ll be damned if I am going to let this cold derail me. First I find some fresh squeezed orange juice in a market, then get a chicken sandwich, which I am basically unable to eat because I am nauseous. Hop on the metro and into the city. Vienna is like a breath of fresh air, everything is so clean and efficient and pleasant. There is a drastic, marked change in the attitude of the people. They don’t look away as you pass, they say hello and where are you from, and I feel in a way like I have surfaced from being underwater for weeks. I realize that the hassles down south have been getting me down, and I am glad to be moving north. Vienna has parks and tree-lined paths and statues and monuments and breathtaking architecture galore; there is something almost musical about it, something sublime, and I find myself actually singing out loud as I stroll down the Ringstrasse. I go to the Hapsburg castle, there is a trio of musicians performing classical music on a mandolin, an accordion and a lute-like acoustic bass of some kind. They are amazing – I stop and stare. The mandolin player is OUT OF HIS MIND, his hands fly all over the fretboard at light speed and twist in grotesque contorted fingerings, and I feel like Kerouac’s buddy sitting in front of the jazz trumpeter, “blow, blow…” The guy just knocks my head off. The little crowd looks interested, but I wonder if they really know just how good this is. When they are done, I walk away, dazed. I walk through a gorgeous garden filled with roses of all shapes and sizes, and gaze in wonder at the Renaissance triumph that is the Parliament building. I spot a raven standing beneath a tree. Vienna is truly a magical place. I pass a metro station and a crazed dirty man stumbles around a corner. He starts to scream, a long cry of rage and despair. His mouth grows and grows in size until it envelopes his entire face, he has the largest mouth in the world, his wild eyes bug-eyed on the margins. “Ayayayayaya!” I guess even a city this beautiful will never work for everyone. I stop in a park, my cold has overwhelmed me, and I collapse under a tree near a pond. Pigeons and duck frolic, girls sunbathe. There are three homeless fellows there that are a bit the worse for wear but at the same time dignified and almost regal, one of them wears a sports coat and a cap and his beard is groomed and combed. They sit about, chatting like philosophers. I get up after a nap by the pond, and head for the touristy area close to the river where all the cafes and bars are. I stop in and watch a little World Cup (Ecuador beats Costa Rica). When these football players make contact with each other, they collapse as if they have been shot with a rifle, like burn victims, writhing and thrashing in mortal agony. In two minutes they usually make remarkable recoveries and are running around again. I head back on the metro, go to my room and chat with my roommate Alex from Brazil, who flies helicopters for a living with the military and has recently been to Romania. I eat an apricot, then have a nap. Later on I go down to the bar, have my free drink and talk with some people. Just that one drink leaves me feeling faint from the cold, so I go to bed. I lay up half the night, feverish and disoriented, sweating like a man in the jungle, “good lord I feel like I’m dyin’.”

In the morning, take the boat once again, sit top deck, enjoy the beautiful sunshine and the breeze. Gaze out across the water into the mist. Somewhere out there is Algeria and Libya and the whole mysterious mammoth girth of Africa. I hike through the alleys of Venice with my pack on my back. No matter how carefully I follow my map, I wind up in dead ends, or going in circles. A bit maddening without signs. I wind up at the extreme west end of the island, having overshot the train station. I backtrack a bit, twist and turn and eventually find it. I take my pack off and rest in a park for a spell. My shirt is soaked through with sweat. The mosquitos enjoy this. Stop in at a little cafe near the train station, hoping to save some money. I pick out a bacon and brie sandwich, 3.50 euros. I have a coke with it, and then a beer. The bill comes: sandwich: 4.50 euros, coke: 4.00 euros, beer: 6 euros. Highway robbery, no two ways about it. The train to Vienna is mostly empty, but there are two Californians sitting with me, Chris and Alitha. The train ride is long, but the conversation is good and time passes quickly. We ride through mountains and valleys, some of the peaks sprinkled with snow. There are cottages here and there, and everything looks like something out of a dream, truly magnificent country. I realize on the train that what I thought were allergies in Venice were actually the beginnings of a cold, which proceeds to get into full swing in a very short space of time. We get to Vienna around ten, grab the metro and I find my hostel. As I am walking on the street towards it, Germany scores in the World Cup with only five minutes left, and I hear eruptions in just about all the apartments in Vienna all at the same time. The reception guy at the hostel is ecstatic, he has been watching the game and can barely contain himself. He giddily showers me with gifts: a free towel, a handful of drink coupons. The hostel I am staying in is called Wombats and is really top notch, a lot of attention to detail, a highly recommended stop in Vienna. I am feeling like crap because of the cold and collapse in bed immediately.