From Africa To Russia

Go to Franca train station in the morning to get my ticket for tomorrow’s train. There are twelve booths selling tickets and only one of them is open (sporadically). The girl gets up, mills around, plays with the computer, does her nails, does anything other than help anyone buy tickets. She is relieved by another woman, who proceeds to mill around, play with the computer etc. People give birth, build cathedrals, die in the waiting area, it just goes on and on. After hours it is my turn. I go up, try to use my eurail pass, and find that since first class is booked I will have to pay for the ticket. I suspect that this may get to be a pattern, and if so I don’t know what the bloody point of having the pass is. A Spanish guy walks up to the booth. “Do you speak English?” he asks the clerk sarcastically, smiling. I guess they get that question a lot. After, I eat a great salmon sandwich on a terrace looking up the street at the Arc de Triomf, then hang out at the beach a while. The sand is a bit rocky, and there are nude sunbathers. A fellow wanders up to me and mumbles something, I think he is offering me drugs. Wander around a bit by the port, feeling mellow, drink a beer or two. Then have paella again on the street, making eyes at the cute Spanish waitress. Spanish women have such a distinctive look about them, kind of dark and mysterious. She seems quite amused by the attention. Is very windy out, signs are blowing down around me. Go back in the early evening, La Hostel Party Central is already swinging. The Brazilian guy pours me beer. I drink. A loud red-headed Irishman shows up, cursing the British. A gorgeous girl from Alabama kisses my hand out of nowhere. I chat with a French fellow, drink some more, then go to sleep.

In the morning I find out my roommate is a pretty girl named Nicole from Edmonton (more Canadians?). Nicole loves to salsa, goes dancing every night, has been to Cuba five times to do it. Nicole and I go out in the morning to see La Sagrada Familia, and stop on the way to eat paella. I slice my finger on a crayfish. Nicole is pleasant company, typically reserved as Canadians tend to be, but with a privileged and nonchalant air that pretty girls often have. La Sagrada is big, and covered in scaffolding. “I’m going to have to ditch you, I need to go shopping,” Nicole says, and does so. I walk down Las Ramblas, they are selling birds in cages, and there are performance artists made up in spectacular costumes, sitting still but coming to life when you throw money at them. All in all, Barcelona is a delightful city, one of the nicest I have seen, bright and spread out and cheerful. I sit in a square and throw bread to the birds. I am swarmed by pigeons. A pigeon comes and sits on my shoulder, and I reward him with the loaf for his bravery. I don’t think I will have any problems with pickpockets here, as I am getting the sneaking suspicion that the others think I am the pickpocket myself (long hair and all). I have heard stories of people that have been victimized recently, however. I walk to the port, sit down at the water by myself. My eyes begin to well up with tears unexpectedly. The girl? The trip? I don’t know. I drink some beer, then go to the supermarket to get more. The hostel is swinging as usual, people everywhere partying, drinking and watching soccer (ok, futball). A couple guys from South Dakota there, a Brazilian steadily getting drunk, Bruno spinning around, high on life. I drink my beer, run out, get more. Drink that, start drinking someone else’s. I talk to an Australian who just saw the Red Hot Chili Peppers and has an idea for a web site. We all gather together and go out at about two in the morning. We walk out, kick a bottle down the street soccer-(futball) style, get on the metro, go to a bar. The guys drink Absinthe, which I can no longer drink since Denver. I am suddenly tired, and down, and want to go back. So do a few other people. We walk back to the metro, it is closed. So we walk it back, the girls are wearing inefficient footwear, so it is a struggle for them. I offer to carry one of them, hee hee. Jason from California has an early train to catch, and looks pissed.

In the morning, walk around Madrid. See a few squares, monuments and gardens. Madrid is nicer than I expected, it is a working city but seems pretty relaxed and agreeable, and the people seem amicable enough. On to get the ticket for the train to Barcelona. I have forgotten to buy it ahead of time, and there is a long line. I get a train four hours past what I wanted, but oh well. The Madrid train station is part rain forest; I sit amongst palm trees and birds and spraying mist and wait it out. Thinking I will call the hostel and notify them of the delay, I encounter the European phone system for the first time. My phone card has three different access numbers listed on it. The first takes me to an automated woman, who tells me that my PIN is incorrect. The second two refuse to let me finish dialing, it cuts me off after about five digits and just spaces out. I figure I’ll try putting change in. I deposit a bunch of change and dial the number for the hostel. The phone does nothing. I hang up, waiting for the change to return. It doesn’t. There appears to be no button to return change either. Well, no phone call, but I have seen Madrid, and am off to Barcelona. Adios, Madrid, this Mahou is for you. Take the fast train to Barcelona, four hours, lady comes by with earphones for movie, no earphones gracias, no espanol. There is this ridiculous pair of little teenaged American girls sitting in front of me, all style and attitude, dressed to the nines in pretentious expensive-yet-fashionably-ragged designer clothes, handbags and makeup, MTV Paris Hiltonites, the Olsen twins themselves. The one girl wears a hat tilted low to the side, so that she doesn’t have to look at anyone when she talks to them. They live in Manhattan and go to “Arts” school, talk like they are from California, and are renting an apartment in Barcelona for a few months on daddy’s money. A corn-fed very white boy from Canada sitting next to them is quite taken with them, tongue hangs out, will say or do anything for just a few moments of their time, which they dole out to him begrudgingly in small doses. After a while, they pull out ipods and ignore him. A metal-head from the States walks by every few minutes, heading to the front to load up on Jack Daniels. Get into Barcelona at 12:30 at night, hike it in to the hostel – long walk, takes about an hour. When I get there, luckily Bruno is there to let me in. Bruno is an extremely happy, polite and helpful person, I believe from South America, who is watching over the place. Bruno lives to party, and he is in the right place. The hostel is absolutely party central, people come in at three or four drunk, yelling and screaming. An Irish bloke picks a political fight with the Americans, then screams violently at the top of his lungs, but things settle down a bit afterwards. I lay in my top bunk, exhausted, room hot, listening to the revelry and staring at the bright light streaming in through the hall window, and sweat it out.

Get out of Tangiers with no problem, Escape from Alcatraz. Everyone stares at the evil white man. Card machine is broken at the ticket counter, only cash. I’ll bet. A Spanish lady is crying at the gate because they won’t let her in, the military girls in charge stand around trying to look tough and wicked. I approach the ferry along the walkway, a man in a running suit stops me. “You go there, you take bus.” He is pointing to a side entrance, to a concrete platform that appears to drop off into space. I hesitate. He gestures impatiently for me to jump or something. I move forward along the plank, adjust my blindfold. Then I see the beginning of a small stairway and bus down below. The bus to the boat and off. Dolphins jump in groups around the boat as we go back. I sit on the ferry at the window, staring at little bugs that flew in and got trapped. They raise their wings feebly, not understanding why they can no longer fly. There are billions of bugs in their death throes right now, there are bacteria eating each other and lions and dogs and well-dressed apes in varying stages of decay everywhere, and the Muslims pray to a presumably benevolent god all day long with all their might. I just don’t get it. Once back in Spain, I go into a small eatery in Algeciras. Ask for a taco, he doesn’t know what it is. As a substitute, he starts to pull out something vaguely resembling a large sardine. I decline, and go elsewhere, wind up having a tortilla patatas, which is potatoes on bread. Go out, see some horses in a field, take a picture. Get on a train to Madrid, the cabin is practically empty, a gigantic black guy (I think American) sits right next to me after surveying the terrain, crunching me against the window. I don’t know what that is all about, but I excuse myself and move to the next car back. I find out later that I am the asshole, the black guy was just sitting in his assigned seat and I wasn’t. The conductor sets me to rights a little while later with the use of sign language, and I move to the proper seat to appropriately hang my head in shame. Southern Spain, horses and goats and cows, pleasant mix of brown rolling hills and greenery, the sparse landscape dotted with comfortable little villages. Truly mesmerizing, I can see why people are so taken with the place. Upon arrival, my map works properly and gets me to the hostel in Madrid. I go out for a beer, find a charming little square full of people sitting at outside tables eating and drinking and making merry, then sit in a cafe and listen to a small group speak Spanish with the bartender. I don’t understand a word of it, but they are friendly enough. Back to the hostel, I find BEER IN A VENDING MACHINE. The Spanish are advanced. I go down to the common area, which is currently hidden behind the construction zone that is the main lobby, cinder blocks and concrete dust all around. I chat with a crazy Australian girl who never stops talking and a Taiwanese girl eating noodles, then off to bed.

We meet up with Anna, a cute Scotswoman and her mother at breakfast the next morning, and head for the Spanish border on foot. Anna’s mother is a friendly enough sort but a bit of a dingbat, far too caught up in conversation to waste time worrying about trivial details such as oncoming traffic while crossing the street. She is studying law and writes poetry (christ, what a combination). We cross the border, find the bus station and hop on the bus to Algeciras. Then we jump on the ferry, an hour or two across the Mediterranean and just like that we are in Africa. Tangiers is like a resting war zone, dusty and despondent. Everyone is a scam artist, everyone has an angle. Still, on the whole not as bad as I thought it would be, there are worse places in Mexico, Juarez for example. The experts had dug the place too far down to ever live down to it. On the ferry we meet a pair of young French Canadians, Marie-Claude and Veronique. They are taking a year to visit and do good in Africa. They plan to go as far south as Madagascar. Marie-Claude is stunningly gorgeous, resembles Tea Leoni, much to my chagrin. I will not sleep tonight without alcohol. The four of us team up, and after some initial difficulty, manage to find a decent place to stay in Tangiers (some paperwork bureaucracy on the ferry, a persistent taxi driver at the gates). We tour the Medina, the casbah. A bit sensory overload, slightly organized chaos, a million little shops everywhere, their wares spilling out into the street. I don’t know how they can make a living with all that competition. Someone mumbles something about not snapping pictures, lest the camera be snatched from us and the film torn out. In front of us, a couple of Arab men are rushing like mad to lift a basket of fruit and hide it in the back as the police approach – permit problem? Tangiers is decaying, poor and a bit desperate, with a hint of danger in the air. Foreigners appear to be quietly detested, beer is hard to find, people kneel down on mats to pray frequently. First trip to Africa, first trip to Islamica. We have dinner at a place with a fawningly polite fellow who waits on us. He knows English pretty well and is eager to please. A cat walks in, desperate for food / attention. I pet the cat. The girls say the cat smells. When the waiter sees the cat, he kicks it. Across the street, a woman in a shawl sits on the curb selling cigarettes one at a time, her little son sleeping in her lap. We finish up the night with some other traveling Canadians, just back from the beach, along with a fellow from Austin, Texas. I get ripped off getting a six-pack from the local scam artist. Sucks to be a tourist. Marie-Claude is obviously not interested, but her feet weren’t all that great anyway, so my turmoil will be diminished this evening.

Drunk at 8 am at the airport, perfect way to start the trip. Beautiful blonde waitress girl sits down next to me as I drink, slams an ashtray down and starts to smoke. I don’t know if this means anything. Staring out into the English rain, I am watching the procedures of a de-planing. I was hoping for a lightning bolt of energy against all odds, the illusion of a new start, but I feel as tight and restricted as ever. A bloke sat down between blondie and I, seemed keen to start a conversation, seemed lonely, but I couldn’t re-affix my stare. There is something fundamentally wrong with me at this point; I have let them get to me. I will attempt the life-affirming bullshit on this trip, I will make a pact with my sensible self to straighten the fuck up. I do however sense a large intake of beer in my future, so we will have to wait and see. Good morning, London Gatwick. Chez Gerard, French place at the airport. I have just spent ten minutes waiting for a beer from the two smirking idiots at the Red Cock Bar or some fucking thing, they keep skipping over the backpacked tourist. So Chez Gerard accepts backpacked tourists, Florence takes my order with a smile and I give her a tip and drink. Two well-to-do ladies walk in and start shit over a croissant. There are two blonde waitresses, one hot and one all right (I have a thing for blondes). The hot one walks in and gives me a “sorry” glance as I force myself to look at her, the other blonde just looks happy to be working there. She washes the windows when nothing else is happening. Florence goes and has a smoke. The French manager says, “shit happens”. I am getting the sneaking suspicion that Europe doesn’t do ‘casual’ well. I fly into Gibraltar dead tired, surprised to have to walk back across the runway to get to the place. I have been on planes or in airports for the past 25 hours now. I find my hostel, the little kid spins me through the rules and regs as fast as he can while imparting as little information as possible. I get out of there and walk around Casemates Square and nearby. Gibraltar strikes me as a border town, a frontier town, all of the guys are trying to stare you down and puffing out their chests, worse than NYC or some such place. I find out later that a boatload of Americans has drifted into town this afternoon, and that the same group of blacks that has been trying to terrorize me all afternoon as I drink my beer in the square is in fact the imported Philly hood, drunk and ignorant and taking liberties. I am starting to understand where the term ‘ugly american’ comes from. If I saw this regularly, I would hate us, too. Steve the expatriate Aussie tells me they were chased off by the police, finally. Steve and I and Michaella (a large German girl) are sharing the room at the hostel together. Steve is a nice enough fellow but has been everywhere and knows everything (a trait that seems common to many). Michaella is reserved but with a bit of a chip on her shoulder. Not enough sex. She and I agree to go to Tangiers together in the morning.