Scandinavia Salad

Images to be added later as they are not properly uploading.

Been a few days. Not much has happened in the way of crazy or particularly interesting anecdotes. I thought that I'd check in with just some various things I took notes on as I have wandered through Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and finally Finland where I have just left. The majority of this is just copied down notes. Also, today going back through Stockholm on my way to Amsterdam I will need to buy a new camera, as mine was stolen off the table of a coffee shop my first afternoon in Helsinki. I was stupid to leave it there. So, a lot of these pictures are of things I'm not exactly describing simply because those pictures are lost.

Arriving in Helsinki

I am writing this from Olympic Stadium in Helsinki Finland, or more speciifcally the old Olympic village. It is not what you'd call a masterpiece of architecture, the stadium is impressive, even though the village (hostel) has more of an Eastern Bloc kintergarten feel escept for the common room which was gorgeous. This is where the 1952 summer games were hosted, which I found surprising, Finland definitely feels more like a winter games town. The morning I arrived it was below freezing as I got lost and walked about 6km to find the hostel.

Drugs and yoga and impending disaster

Christiana is a "free neighborhood" in Copenhagen that enjoys autonomy from the city's laws. It is basically a few city blocks on anarchy, with a very open drug trade, and a sign as you leave that says "Now entering the EU". I didn't have any real interesting experience in the place, and I found it kind of seedy. However I do think that the very existence of it is kind of notable. Christiana makes its own currency called the lon, however the guys on Pusher Street (yes) will accept DKR. There are several very rickety wooden shanties people have built wherever, as there is no building code or zoning laws. It is kind of a hard arrangement to understand, because I am told the City Government (Copenhagen) has been cracking down on the drug trade for about five years. Typically once a month they will ride in and bust everyone, but on the day I was there and most others the drugs are laid out on roadside tables, like a menu, like hotdog stands. I couldn't find anyone willing to allow me to take a picture of this.

Near the open air drug market there are lookouts placed for the inevitable incursions by the local politi. I get the sense that this place is starting to erode, the government is taking steps to normalize the neighborhood, and these hardcore anarchists are not going to go down without a fight. I don't see them organizing any cogent legal defense, but a riot is a very real possibility. The residents that are not junkies and homeless are rabid in the defense of their way of life. The high minded and peaceful yoga enthusiasts are being pushed by a harder edged angry anti establishment youth who are being pushed by the KBH (Kobenhavn, as it is spelled natively) Fuzz.

At its best and most idealized you hear the place is a haven of free thought and artistic expression. A sort of hippie commune given a shred of legal legitimacy that has evolved into an anarchist's sandbox. The idea is much more glamorous than the reality I saw in my very short walk through it. Christiana has been around since 1971, got the bulk of its current legitimacy in 1989, and in 2004 started to come under heavy attack from the politicians of the city. It is certainly a worthy social experiment, but the feel is now as though it is the end of a long game of jenga. There is a fall apart coming, either from within or without. The answer is likely both. The most dangerous looking and feeling people I have seen in all of Scandinavia squat leaning against the old stained bricks of the original military barracks that was there, they are smoking their cigarettes and other things, and squinting at all who pass. These people are not going to leave easily. Their hands are red from the cold and rough from hard living. They are not here for the sharing of ideas, or art, or even freedom insofar as an ideal. They are here to be left alone. To be unhindered by the laws of the real world which restrict them in whatever ways that it does. Mercy on those that try to interfere. There will be murders.

Through sunwashed cobblestone alleys

Stockholm, in the center at Gamla Stan is maybe the most beautiful city I have ever been to. The buildings all have a semi uniform yellow-orange tint to them, like the background of a post renaisssance landscape painting. The townhouses rise directly at the point of water, on the island, nearly all buildings are around 5 stories, but from a distance you can see the four steeples of the Cathedral, Royal Palace, Riddarholm Church, and the House of nobility. The architecture is compact as many of these buildings and the city plan date back to the middle ages. The streets are narrow and cobblestone with winding alleys that you can imagine being lightless and stinking warrens in another, less prosperous time. Of course, the food is bland (as everywhere in Scandinavia), but for walking along strapped with all your possessions and listening to your ipod, there is no better place to be walking that I have found.

"He's the one that raped me officer, the one with the King mask."

The night I got into Oslo it was 10PM local and I was starving. It took me an hour to find a room, this was the night before the famous "Who Dey" incident on the MS Innvik. When I finally found an overpriced room, I went looking for food and ended up at Burger King. I got one of the meals, just a burger, fries, large coke zero and an extra cheeseburger, it was 150 NOK. I realized later that it cost 24 dollars. I am fucking serious. Norway is insanely expensive.

Finland is for lovers

I did not sleep at my hostel either night in Finland. I would still be there were I not meeting my friend Bill in Amsterdam soon and need to make my way so we arrive on the same day. On night one I wandered the main drag near the train station and went into the place with the loudest music. I had bought some vodka on the ship, duty free, so had taken a few drinks before heading out because alcohol in all of these Nordic countries is quite pricey.

Now, in Finland especially, if there is an open spot at your table it is very common for someone to come and sit down. I think this is awesome. They will ask if someone is sitting there, and if not will plop down across from you. Now the weird thing is, in Scandinavia people are very standoffish at first, if you are a stranger it is nearly for certain you will need to start the conversation. Not that its a big deal, but as an outsider it can get occasionally exhausting.

It has beome increasingly clear that I am very under dressed for European nightlife. I had sort of expected this, especially after the loss of my jacket somewhere in Southern France. My suede boots are looking rough, and mostly I am just rocking jeans and sweaters. This is offset by the exotic nature of being a foreigner, so its a wash socially.

I got a drink and sat down, and before long a group of 6 people sat down at the same table and they looked much cooler than I did. They were all together, and they were speaking fast in Finnish which is probably the second most impossible language to pick up in the world behind Mandarin Chinese. After a few minutes when they were a little more settled in, I looked at them, 2 men, 4 women, and I asked: "So...who's the leader here?" They looked at eachother puzzled, I nodded and continued. "Okay, I'll be the leader, but you all need to tell me your names."

5 of the 6 were work friends from some local office, the other was one of the guy's girlfriend. After they warmed up to me they were very fun, and I was made to go and dance several times. Now, please not that I am a horrendous dancer, it probably looks something like an uncooked turkey rolled down a rocky hill out of synch with whatever music. However, the floor in front of the band was so full that it restricted movement and in my case embarassment. Everyone is a bad dancer when there is no room for it. And once I had the acceptance of one group it became very easy to move through the place and speak to everyone, it was as if I had been vouched for. The cross section was impressive, sharp dressed professionals, and kids with mohawks and bullrings, they moved amongst eachother with ease and comfort. I was talking to some punk rockers near the bar when Adelina, from my initial group, caught up with me and started to give me a hard time about leaving them.

"Nonsense." I told her. "I'm your leader I wouldn't leave you behind. I am just trying to find some more subjects."

"We are not good enough?"

"You are very close to good enough, just one or two more people." She laughed. Sometimes I am on, and I was very on.

I got back to the Hostel the next afternoon around 1PM. I had gone for a change of clothes, and it took me forty five minutes to get there from Adelina's place (Ye-Yeah!) My plans were to see the Picasso Exhibit at the National Gallery, and then try to match Friday night with Thursday night. At the Hostel I met an American named Andrew who was also laid off and traveling, a former entertainment lawyer from LA, and we made plans to meet up. Much of our conversation was about how isolating it could become when alone all the time and how it was puzzling that people in hostels seemed to prefer hanging out in them at night rather than go out. You will see the same person camped with their laptop the whole day, and into the night, why travel?

That night Andrew and I were walking towards the tram stop talking when this girl walked up to us, she was short, wearing thick rimmed hipster glasses, leggings and chuck taylor all-stars. In Europe everyone wears chucks. "Why are you guys speaking English?" Cause we're American. "Really?! Where are you guys from?" Her name was Nicole, and she was from New Mexico getting a free masters in Architectural design in Helsinki. She was headed to the stadium for a concert so we followed her. However, apparently in Helsinki there are two venues called Toloon hall, and she had gone to the wrong one, so she decided to come along with us as a guide.

Friday night in Helsinki was the most fun I have had so far, and ironically it was at Molly Malone's. There is a Molly Malone's like a block from my place in America. And this place was completely kickin' on Friday night. In line to get in (yes.) we met up with a guy from New York who was couch surfing, and a finnish couple who stopped to ask us for directions. This was the night I noticed a lot of Finnish girls spit. Spit like baseball players on the street. You have these super beautiful, and they are beautiful- Finland is filthy with hot girls, and every few minutes in a conversation they will turn away and spit on the street! I never ever got used to seeing it. Nicole told me it was something that had just started in the last year or so. She thought it had come from some film, but she wasn't sure which.

Anyway, by the time we got in there I was rolling with eight people I had met that day, and we were all talking like old friends. One good thing about meeting new folks every day is that all your best stories are new again. The band sang in English, and there were drink specials for vodka, it was a good scene. We amused oursevles dancing, swapping stories, and exchanging slang words in native languages. Eventually we played games where the guys would go talk to ladies, and then someone from the group would go and cockblock. This sprung from my story of the greatest cockblock of all time...here it is...

-The greatest cockblock of all time-

Every year, everyone from my fantasy football leage meets up after the season to divide up the cash and just hang out. It's something I look forward to every year and a tradition that is one of the reasons it is the best league ever, I truly enjoy hanging out with those guys. The greatest cockblock of all time actually happened the year I missed thi event. Anyway, after dinner we usually go and hit the bars and this one year the guys went to Crowley's up in Mount Adams, I had to work so this is all second hand from like five sources.

Our pal Googy was making time with this lady, and really getting somewhere. It was near the end of the night, and all signs pointed to Googs at worst getting her number. She had happily isolated herself from her friends and she was looking at his passport, he was making her laugh, they were leaned in close. Googy had not driven himself, and it was the end of the night and more than a few people were sauced, including the league commisioner Mark. Mark, who I could picture with his troublemaking grin and glassy eyes from the beers was trying to get people organized to leave as last call was rapidly approaching. He made his way right over to Googs and the girl and he said in a very loud voice:

"Dude, are you gonna fuck her? Or are we gonna go?"

Googs' eyebrows shoot up and he shrugs "I guess we're gonna go."

Greatest cockblock of all time. No argument.

-End anecdote-

By the end of the night at Molly's, around 330am, I was walking with the Finnish couple and Nicole, everyone else had scattered. After a cursory look for places that were still open I agreed to walk Nicole home, or more insisted since the buses weren't running, not that she argued. She had been super cool to us, and had hilariously rolled up my pants when I got hot in the bar from the movement and crush of people. I looked ridiculous. My pants are getting way to big for me, due to all of this walking loaded down with my stuff. I think I have lost fifteen pounds in 3 weeks, I had to make a new hole in my belt.

I did not realize the walk to Nicole's apartment on her campus would take an hour and a half. We weren't even in Helsinki anymore, I was freezing, my feet were in agony. We got to her place at sunrise, and had one of those really connected and cool talks you have sometimes on the walk there. By the time we arrived it was her "shift" to do the laundry, so she washed my clothes too.

The Hostel in the Olympic village was basically a 40euro place to keep my backpack for two days. Last night I was on a ship and I stayed in my cabin and rested my legs which still felt like they were going to fall off. And right now I am typing all of this at a coffee shop in Sweden, my plans are to watch football tonight, do laundry, and rest some more. Afterall, in two days I will be in Amsterdam with an old friend and I am going to need to be rested.

Ahoy-Dey

NOTE - Written at an internet cafe in Oslo station, pictures to be added later.


By and large Europe is very kind of English speakers. In the main cities it is easy to find even that the kids working at Burger King have enough of the language to help. However, I still do find that I spend a lot of time simply walking around bewildered by the world around me. Engaging people in conversation is sometimes a dogged task, especially in Scandinavia where people seem to keep themselves a great deal. Especially at night. People in Copenhagen and Oslo don't seem to be real fond of physically imposing men walking up to them at night and speaking a non native tongue. They are polite but nervous. They also have places to go. Some night I just wander and see the city and listen to people talk excitedly in words I can't decipher.

In Copenhagen, on Friday and Saturday night local businesses set up tents in every public square. They set up games, give out literature and food. At least I think that's what goes on. Best I can tell, some of them were farm machine sellers, or phone service, every branch of the Danish armed forces sets up a makeshift recruitment center. One of them came to me wearing a blue beret and speaking quickly. I guess at least if you joined the Danish army, Dick Cheney wouldn't see to it you were off dying on a lie in Iraq... woooho! Rimshot. But enough politics, now that I have taken my potshot. Heh.

It is an odd and disorienting experience to wander through busy streets, see and hear people laughing, but understanding no bit of their conversation. Imagine living without context. It makes one feel like an old widower, wandering to the park, to feed the swans that sail along the canals. It's a relationship you understand, you give the bird bread, the bird eats it, it makes sense. One of the tents had open fires, and long handled cast iron ladles that people were using to make pancakes over open flame. This tent appeared to sell stuffed animals, as in taxidermy. Surreal.

Obviously I have the social powers to break such confusion, but some nights I choose not to. Its oddly thrilling to have absolutely no agenda but to stand where things are happening. To draw your own conclusions with no verbal hints but the tone of voice. To truly watch what people are doing, and what their body language says, it is a completely different way of going about existing in the world.

Last night I stayed on a Botel, as they are called. It was called the M.S. Innivik. It was also a bar, dance hall, and makeshift movie theater that showed DVDs. It sounds like, with all that, this was a large ship. It was not. The Innivik is moored adjacent to the Oslo Opera House, and I thought it would be a nice quiet evening staring out at sea. At 7PM local, when the NFL games were starting I set up my laptop at the end of the bar and set about trying to find a free internet stream to show me the game. It wasn't until the middle of the 2nd quarter I had found one, and to my surprise the bar room of the ship was starting to fill with rough looking men in all denim, and rastafarians. Soon the proceedings were in full swing, they were doing chants and downing their beers. One of them noticed me sitting with my elbows on the bar, chewing my knuckles, with headphones on. I smelled him before I felt him looming, I smelled his breath from the drinks, and the smokes, and the few days at least without brushing. He was peering over my shoulder with a cherubic grin on his face. I liked the mischevious glint in his eyes.

"Uh hey. How's it going?" I asked him.

"What's all this. Amer-ee-can futbol?"

"Hey, that's right. I dunno if you know this but those guys in the purple are fuckers." Here he laughed. One thing Europeans understand implicitly is what it means to hate an opposing team with all the blackness of which your heart is capable.

"So they are bad yah?"

"Absolutely. That guy there..." I pointed at Ray Lewis. "Stabbed somebody and then let his friends take the fall." Which is really only partially true.

"The fall?" He looked confused and I realized I was speaking in slang.

"Blame." I said. "He let his friends take the blame." And now my new friend looked a little offended.

"Eh." He nodded. And for a few minutes I explained to him about my team, the long suffering Bengals. He listened with an offputting intensity, his eyes never ever leaving mine and his brow furrowed like he was angry. Every now and then he would give a single and decisive nod. After I was done he turned away and shouted at his friends in Norweigan and they came over as well. It was clear that he was the leader, he was the shortest and hardest looking of them. Somewhere along the way he told me is name was Ött. By this time the game was winding down, They all groaned when Ray Rice broke his 49 yard touchdown pass.

"Don't worry." I told them. "This is how we do it now. Watch number 9, Carson Palmer is going to be perfect from here on out." These guys were all huddled around me watching my little laptop screen. I pulled my earplugs so they could hear the audio, they really enjoyed the hit on Chad Johnson (I will not call him Ochocinco) by the Villainous Ray Lewis. Then I had to explain to them it was a cheap shot and "Stabbit Ray", as my friends call him, was a punk. They were thoroughly confused by the penalties and what they were for, but I felt they were firmly on my side. I have made girls watch football who were more baffled, at least these fellas liked it when someone took a monster hit.

"Fucka him!" Ött declared. I high fived him, and he laughed.

"Fucka him with a knife." I agreed.

There were probably fifteen people peaking around trying to see at this point. I turned and winked at Ött. I knew we were going to win. When Palmer hit Caldwell for the winning touchdown I jumped out of my stool with my arms in the air and the Sailors and Dreadheads cheered, as if they were cheering me, and maybe in a way they were. In any case they were thoroughly happy for me. They raised glasses and started on of their chants, and when they were done I responded with: "Who dey! Who dey! Who dey think they gonna beat them Bengals....NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOBODY!" They liked it so well they made me teach it to them. So, if ever in Norway you hear the nonsensical victory chant of the Cincinnati Bengals, it might not be that you are simply homesick. They might just be actually saying it.

It was a late night on the boat in Oslo, and whenever someone said "Who Dey" there was a chorus in response and the clinking of mugs. I remember thinking of the pleasant dichotomy and inimitable feeling of living in a world where you are confused most of the time, and then suddenly have it make total and complete sense as if you were home.

Who Dey indeed.

Monsters, no. Ghosts, yes.

Yesterday I took a ferry boat across the Baltic Sea from Germany to Denmark on my way to Kobenhavn. The train rides straight into the boat, everyone gets off and goes upstairs and the boat carries the train across the sea. It is already cold in Scandinavia, it snowed yesterday in Helsinki, and standing on a deck of a ship feeling the Artic wind blow down on you from its very home you are suddenly aware of your fingers and toes. I wrote this after I had gotten back on the train.

10/7

I can tell you how to see a ghost. You have to be standing on a ship, and from the East the sun is ascending and unimpeded by anything to cross its brilliance, and from the west a constant chilling wind blows violently. You will need a source of music and you must specifically play "New Slang" by the Shinns on repeat. Then you stare north at the horizon where the rich blue of the sea meets the gray watercolor blue of the sky. You must stand that way for thirty minutes, until you are good and freezing, and you are ready to go inside. Your mind will have wandered far away from you, and your lungs will wonder how you found air that was so clean. When you can barely stand it any longer, look down over the side of the boat, just away from where the wake of your vessel has churned the water into foam. You will be squinting from the sun in your left eye, and from the wind in your right. If you did it correctly the water will be a smooth and intensely dark green color, and you will see shapes flickering just under the surface. You will swear you saw your entire past and future play out simultaneously over top eachother in a fathomless chaotic dance. You'll see the stream of your time racing from points unknown, and well trodden, and you will see where they raced into eachother at top speed and crashed. You'll realize you are standing on the place where they crashed and you always have been. That you have never not been. All the ghosts you see, ghosts in the water, they are your ghosts, and you will suddenly be aware of the fantastic and impossible odds you overcame to be standing where you are, when you are, as who you are. There was no reason that any of this should have ever happened. Only it did happen. It's happening right now. You might find that your life has always been happening and you didn't think of it that way until just now.

It isn't easy, but if you do it right, and your eyes are true, you will witness tiny miracles over and over. You will know gratitude, and you will forget to be cold.

When I was a child I was watching a television show I can't recall. On the show was a monster of some sort, he had bruised skin and a puckish aspect to his face, maybe he had tiny devil horns on his head. He grinned a lot, and bantered with the hero. I was transfixed by him, and I turned and asked my Stepfather Byron where he came from. Byron said to me "Denmark. He came from Denmark."

So, what I'm saying is, I used to think monsters came from Denmark. When I didn't believe in monsters anymore, I didn't think there really was a Denmark. Until I stumbled onto it playing a the globe in my Elemtary school library in the third grade. We used to look at names of countries, I always marvelled that Niger was just one letter away from a awful word to call black people, and it was in Africa. I thought that was some kind of cruel joke. It couldn't really be called Niger could it? How did they get away with that? Who was reponsible? When I saw Denmark on the globe I recall suddenly having a twisting stomach. It simply didn't occur to me that Denmark could exist without charismatically terrifying blue skinned devils, the world was still bigger than could be considered back then. I don't know when I let it go, I never thought about it again until just now when I was, afterall, sitting in Denmark and thinking of something to write down. I can report that I have seen no monster activity, just a lot of blonde people who are tall. Modern day Vikings riding bikes. Lots of bikes to go with the wind turbines. I suppose it is no coincidence that the air here seems like it was just opened from the package or freshly picked.

The Hostel here is called Sleep in Green. It is down a small side street near a movie theater. The inside is painted in a constant album cover like mural of graffiti. I like it here. It's like a hippie commune, the workers are all hanging out with their friends, the internet is good, its clean and charming and hip.

They had a shockingly good Art museum complete with three Van Goh paintings, and an impressive collection of Egyptian and Classical artifacts. How they ended up in Denmark...who knows? Does anyone know, officially, how long a time has to pass before grave robbing turns into science?

Nothing especially crazy today, or thoughful. Copenhagen has surprised me by being kind of awesome and I will be staying an extra night so that I can see the Trivoli Gardens, which is an in city amusement park/botanical garden done up for Halloween. Then the plan is to go to Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, Amsterdam, Brussels, Bruges, Luxemborg, Vienna, Salzburg, Budapest, Bucharest, Bran... to be at Dracula's Catsle on Halloween. That's just the rest of the month, I got tired writing that. It's hard to believe I have only been here two weeks. I suppose it has been rather eventful, but it seems like forever ago I lost my railpass in Nice.

Its naptime. I was prancing 'round Copenhagen for 9 hours on my feet today. I am writing this from six hours in he future, don't worry, everything is fine.

The black spot

This all happened before I was an unwitting street performer, and before my adventures with prostitutes.

A lot of people who are more talented than I am have described what it means to walk on the ground where terrible things happened, and I know now that they too found words to be too clumsy a thing to express the meaning and movement of the whispers you hear. At the risk of digression, I suppose in a sense that proves the value of experiencing your own life. Ultimately, no one, no matter how eloquent, or empathetic can ever properly and wholly explain to you what it means to feel something.

Dachau is a twenty minute train ride from Munich hbf. These days it looks like a military barracks, the grass is green and well tended, in the front a flag pole stands proud and unaware the dark history over which it stands vigil. In America and almost every other place the children are taught about the Holocaust, and they are taught about Hitler, and the numbers are enormous and they seem not real. I grew up in an age of hyperbole, of fantastic action movies where an enormous body count was part of the drama and skillfully severed from the actual meaning of a life ended, who is hurts, how it affects the world; except for the parts designed to make you feel them. To me WWII was this great battle of good and evil, and good won, and so it was okay. Like an action movie, the enormous numbers of dead were like a plot device to make the enemy darker, and more redoubtable. The Holocaust was a giant statistic, some disturbing photos of piles of dead in black and white, gaunt faces and ribcages, and deep sunken eyes that stared into the very face of a monster. Images that were only slightly more real than the films I grew up on, and thusly I was insulated by all that damage and pain. I was outraged, but only because I was told I ought to be. I didn't understand.

I believe in the power of the energy of emotion. I think if enough bad things happen someplace, those things change the place. There is no sound at Dachau, I didn't hear any birds, or the natural ambient sound of the world happening around. There were just soft steps and softer words. Tour guides would speak the loudest in respectful tones. We were led to where the roll was called every morning, the barracks, the gs house, and the oven. Even typing it now makes me shudder. When you stand in front of the yawning portal where so many screaming people were shoved in terror. I imagined myself in there, or someone I love, or anyone, and I started to cry. I felt a thimble full of the rage that causes the Israeli government to chase the last of the SS to the ends of the Earth where they are in repose in filthy apartments, or retirement homes, pretending it never happened. How could anyone throw anyone to be immolated, to be cremated alive? How can you die that way in any dignity, stripped of your family and possessions and worked until your very body betrays you and you are thrown into the fire?

Imagine the smell. There is a film they show of the people who survived and the piles of people who did not. It is something you cannot unsee. Even when you turn away, and everyone turns away.

Dachau is green like a park, and I salute the people of Germany for maintaining their shame. Keeping it as a reminder what it means to fall into the darkness of not questioning what you are told. By doing horrible things in the name of self preservation. If one SS had said enough, he was next in the fire, and I am sure it happened. But if all the SS had done it... They couldn't have all been evil, bad people, could they? They too were dehumanized, but they did ultimately have the choice. What would you or I do to survive? Would you leave your wife a widow, your children orphans, and your parents bereaved to do the right thing? How many other doomed lives would you personally destroy to save your own? Would you escape and leave the ones you loved behind to be gassed and shot and burned and starved? When the forces of evil have truly taken us there is pain and loss in all directions. When the darkness is complete, you can't see where to run to the light. Dachau is one of the places in the world that was plunged to the sightless depths, and the shadow will never quite be off of it.

Being there, or any concentration camp, you can feel it and it works its way into your bones and eyes and you never forget. You can't forget, nor should you ever ever forget. It can still happen, and it still does happen, people are rounded up and tortured and shot. It made me thankful for what I have, and why should I be so lucky? It made me angry, that we have as a race abided such actions and still do. The only thing that keeps us from slipping into barbarism is ourselves.

I quietly wept there, and said a small prayer for the dead though I cannot recall the last time I ever prayed. I was so far away from all of you who care about me, and I had to make do without the comfort of being close to the people I love. It was the time in my trip so far that I missed my home the most.

Aesop's Drunk

A man walked down the street. The street he was walking down was not just any street, it was a wide avenue full of flickering lights, there was music in all directions, and sex shows, and strip clubs. The name of the street was the Reeperbahn, it runs parallel to the river and it is named for the rope that used to be tied down the middle of the street that people could hang onto before streets were paved and things got muddy. The Reeperbahn used to be frequented by sailors, crews of both the river barges and the shipping galleys from the harbor would come there, they would come there because it was one of the world's most famous red light districts.

The man walking down the street was drunk. He had been at a club before, a club called the Star-Club made famous by having the Beatles in residence for over sixty days before they were anything big. The people on the street on a Tuesday night were tourists, the drunk man saw old couples holding hands walking passed the working girls who were obvious because they all were blonde and they all were wearing fannie packs. Still, there was something naughty about the entire set up that the man liked, he had been here in the day, and at night he saw the place with its neon makeup. He knew from hearing that nearby was Herbertstrausse, which was closed off to women and anyone not eighteen years old. Women waited in windows like in Amsterdam, he was not going to go, even for a look in his state. The drunk man was not here for the prostitutes, he was here because this was where you were supposed to party. He ignored the barkers trying to hustle him into their clubs, he knew where the train station was and that was his direct path.

He saw them out of the corner of his eye, as he crossed a street. In Germany people rarely jaywalk, even if the street is empty. They were in front of him as he stepped onto the sidewalk, they were two beautiful smiling blonde German girls. They had fannie packs.

"Guten Abend". He would find out later her name was Kristina.

"Hey." He said warily, they were blocking his path. Later when he gave the autopsy of the evening he saw the subtle and ingenious aspects of their craft. They expected that he would not push them aside rudely, and they were correct, he had always been respectful of women; it had been drilled into him from birth. When he his heels hit the pavement, he was already the prey.

"Are you from the US?" She sounded excited.

"I am. --"

"How do you like Hamburg?"

"It's nice. --"

"How long you stay?"

"Just tonight.--" Every time he answered another question came before he could excuse himself. His downfall was politeness. He looked them in their faces, they really were very pretty girls. His idea of prostitutes were the American type, either emaciated walking corpses selling the last thing they had, or the insanely gorgeous and expensive types that brought down Eliot Spitzer.

"Are you enjoying the city? Learning new things."

"Uh." He knew where this was going.

"Because you should learn about legal German prostitution." Here it was. He laughed. He was interested, but it was because he was drunk, and also because he was vaguely fascinated with sex as a business. As something without feeling or passion attached. These were girls from Germany, there was no chance they were human traffic forced into the worst kind of dehumanizing slavery. They were here because the money was good, and by choice. He had never actually spoken with a whore, ever. "We are independant girls, we have a house thirty meters from here, none of us do tis for drugs, or pimps, we are running a special tonight, two girls for sixty euros. One in your arms, with the boobies and touching and snuggle, one working with her hands, or mouth, or sexy sexy. Nothing kinky."

"I... wait. Sixty euros?" He blinked. He had been dancing earlier, there was a Beatles tribute band and they were amazing. Helter Skelter was still in his head, still in his blood being pumped into him, making him high on the joy of movement. He was intoxicated, they were very beautiful and he was suddenly seduced with his heels on the pavement, barely on the street.

"Sixty euros, yes, no kinky things."

"Both of you?" He had answered so many questions in a row with yes. Are you American, yes. Do you like Hamburg, yes. Are you enjoying the city, yes. Are you learning new things...?

Yes.

"Yes. Both of us. It is Tuesday, there are not so many people out jah?"

"That's a nice offer I... I'm just going to walk up the street and check out the whole thing. I might be back." It was his last feeble try.

"What do you do for living?" They were still blocking his path, both smiling brightly. They both had tanned skin and nice full lips, painted lightly frosted pink. They smelled like fucking. They were dressed in matching denim skirts and white pull over jackets. They did not look trashy in the least.

"Jobless. You guys need any men? I'll dye my hair blonde." They laughed far too hard, and he was to drunk to honestly assess their flattery. They had him, he was just wriggling on the hook. More fresh meat, with a fat wallet, and glassy eyes.

He definitely had sixty euros. And so he followed them the thirty meters and he followed them into the non descript door nestled between the kebab stand and dildo shop. He followed up a twisting spiral stair well and the walls were red from the light. It looked like a movie set of a den of iniquity that a thirty one year old man was entering for the first time. It was very warm, bordering on uncomfortable, the drunk man wondered if he would write about this where his Mother could read. He wondered why he wasn't even really nervous.

"We sit on the bed, thirty or forty five minutes, you don't have to leave after you make orgasm." Their accents were charming. "Would you like something to drink?"

"Yes. I'll have some water thanks." His mouth was dry, so perhaps he was a little nervous.

"You sure you don't want vodka? Fanta? Something stronger?"

"Water is perfect."

"Do you mind if we have something to drink?"

"Not at all."

"It costs seven euros fifty, so seventy five euros."

The drunk man arched an eyebrow. The same trick was often pulled at strip clubs, he found it amusing.

"Whatever."

Kristina, sat and small talked with him, was he married, did he have kids, guessed his age incorrectly young to further flatter him. She told him he had nice skin that made him look younger than he was. Jemine returned with his water and two beers. Later he would realize that they offered something stronger to charge him more.

"We can't start until you get undressed honey."

"Oh. Are we at that part? Aren't you guys going to drink the drinks I paid out the nose for?" They laughed and ignored his question. It wasn't long before the man was indeed undressed, and the beautiful whores had stripped to their underwear. They were tanned and toned, their bodies were most satisfactory to his lewd intent. Both of them had elaborate tattoos, which further added to the exotic nature of the affair.

He was told to lay back, and he did. Kristina cuddled on his shoulder and he stared at her. Her skin was very soft, they were professional in every way.

"Now we explain what happens, so the customer can get exactly what he wants. You can have any party you like, you can have live lesbian show, or one girl puts her nice shaved pussy over your face and you can play with it with fingers and get nice view while the other sucks or fucks, or you can have nice S&M time, whipping, or nipple clamps, anal on us or on you, we can take you to the bathroom and do French shower. Everything is possible depending on what the customer wants, we can do Chinese style, do you know Chinese style?"

"Uh...no."

"Its a special way to move hips, for deeper penetration, you can pay to have both girls naked-"

"Wait what?"

"Shh shh, we explain. We can do Indian tantra, very slow, some customers like to stay longer an make more orgasms. We can put on show until ready again. The maximum you can spend is eight hundred euro."

This was way less hot now, the full menu was overwhelming, and the drunk man suddenly felt very vulnerable and stupid. Jemine had put a condom on him, and her hand was working to arouse him, but it wasn't working.

"Did you say, you don't take your clothes off?"

"We can take our clothes off. Tell us what you want and what you're willing to pay."

"Hang on. What have a paid for?"

"One girl cuddles you, with the boobies and stroking and the other works on you with her hand. She can use a cockring if you like."

"Okay. So say I want what you made it sound like I was getting, how much is that? Like another seventy five?" It all made sense to him now. His first mistake was stopping his gait on the street.

"It would be two hundred. Do you have it with you?"

"Uh...no."

"That's okay. Most guys don't carry that much cash. We take credit or debit cards." Here she rolled over and produced a xeroxed half sheet of paper where he was supposed to write his credit card number, and pin. She was going through some spiel about how he would be protected but the minimum withdrawl was four hundred euros. The drunk man was worldly, but he had gotten his ass handed to him by these veteran hustlers. "Make a nice present for yourself."

"Yeah. Listen. You guys sure are good at fucking people." He laughed at his pun, and handed her the form, he allowed the double hot German blonde suicide girls fantasy fade away forever. He had never wanted to have sex less in his entire life. "I'm not comfortable with this at all. You guys can keep the seventy five." They had made him pay before they had made him take his clothes off, it all lined up. He had been a mark the entire time. Humiliation burned him all over. There was a reason he had never done this, and now he remembered.

They were conversing in German, he was sure not nice things were being said. He dressed quickly. "You don't have to give the card, you can go get the money."

"Yeah. But no. Also I can give myself a better handjob than you can, and I can do it bareback." He started to the door.

"You wait for her to lead you out. You are in the red light district." Kristina's eyes were hard and cruel now. He met them with a level gaze.

"Thanks for looking out for me. You're very nice." And he pushed the door open and shouldered passed the other whore and walked down the steps. He was far less drunk now, and far less polite.

He walked the street, and he this time he did not stop for any of the fannie packs, he passed the clubs without looking up, or the alley that led to famous and seedy Herbertstrausse. He boarded the train and realized his belt was still undone. He chortled and buckled, some tourists watched him and he was tickled by how obvious he was. All the way home he thought about how it would be easier to write it all down in the third person. He was wiser now, and less innocent as a result. He grew up a little more, and he felt like something in him had diminished too and would never be recovered, just how it always feels to learn a lesson.

Quick funny anecdote

I went to Dachau today, and I have to confess that I am a little shaken up. I'll write about it in the next couple of days, if only for my own catharsis. However, I want to share the story that bounced me back a little.

Coming back on the bus from the camp I was in sort of a trance. I wandered around Munich, took some pictures, and I couldn't shake this feeling of weight in the air all around me. I was pretty melancholy and was very inattentive to the world around. Pulling my trusty ipod I decided to play some songs with a little pep, in hopes that the music could direct my mood into less dark recesses.

It worked, in short, I was sitting at a fountain near yet another giant old Church and apparently started singing along with Janis Joplin listening to "Me and Bobb Mcghee". I had the volume all the way up, and I realize now that I could hear myself through my headphones and the music and so I was singing pretty damn loud. I did not realize what I was doing until a nice Asian tourist couple walked over to me and dropped a 1 euro coin at my feet!

I stopped suddenly, of course, I stared at the coin and I realized what had happened and laughed hysterically. I think I made them nervous, they walked away quickly. I looked around and people were staring, and smiling, and also laughing.

Oops.

Anyway. I feel better now.

Remembering Charlie Mops

I arrived in Munich on a night train from Paris a little after dawn on Saturday October 3rd. It had been a sleepless night, largely, as it was very cold in the cabin and I had stayed up late in the night speaking with Josef, an architect from Tours, and Paul a dairy farmer from Wisconsin on semester abroad working in genetics. Later we were joined Mehud from India, a Doctor. It was good company and the conversation ranged far from politics, sports, accents, culture, I drank deeply from it as engaging talk had not been common thus far.

Autumn is taking Germany, surely, and the window in our cabin did not keep the chill away. When my eyes opened I found that my arms were folded into my shirt and I was fetal against the wall. No one felt rested and everyone was aware of possible rigors to come that evening. My hotel would not be ready for some hours, as was the case with Paul, and Josef stuck with us for a few hours and we sat in the Munich station and watched the refugees from last nights revels stagger in, and the fresh meat stride out. Train stations in Europe, the large ones anyway, have a shopping mall feel to them. The food that is quality array of local fare, there are clothing shops, markets, and every place you look to sit there is often someone already there. They are hugging their bags, or shushing a child, or staring into space and slowly rocking back and forth. They are all subconciously keeping time, waiting to get on the train, and on with their lives.

Munich's Hauptbahnhof was especially festive, as you can well imagine. The table next to us was populated by a friendly couple from Halifax, and then two enormous and strapping German men in shorts held by suspenders and matching green hats, they were wolfing down two sandwiches each. When I asked them how they were doing today the larger of the two, with a wide and straight grin said and a deep resonant voice: "SHHHTABLE."

After they met friends they were off, and replaced by a ragged Croatian. His hair was slimy, and he smelled like the night before. He was nursing a beer from a bottle and he had lost his sense of personal space. The only English words he knew were "Big, Obama, and Bush". He was very physical, hugging, slapping, and bumping fists. His stale breath and rank armpits settled in a cloud around us, and it lingered with the sudden awkwardness and then ultimately, menace. Josef has the appearance of physical delicacy, he is thin, with long curly poet's hair. Nothing in his demeanor or appearance would give pause to an overbearing drunkard blowing in from the cold morning. The drunk slapped at Josef's face, and laughed, it was hard to tell if he was trying to provoke or if his self awareness had evaporated. I felt myself tense, and I brought my shoulders back and chest out like on a nature show -- "Watch now as the American traveller feels threatened, his eyes widen, and his chest sticks out to show potential enemies his size and strength." -- I told the man to stop. He laughed and did some sort of weird tai chi dance and spoke in broken English and Slavik, I think he was talking about being in the Serbian war. He went to his knees and bent all the way back, nearly touching his spine on the ground. He waved at me from this position and then clumisly got to his feet, grabbed my hand, kissed it, and was on his way.

Josef was shaken and ashamed of it. He told me a story of when his car was rear ended by a Gypsy in a stolen automobile in Paris, and when they got out of the car the gypsy had badly beaten him, unprovoked and viciously. He said that all confrontations that might end in violence always made him severly anxious as a result. The drunkard had broken our momentum, and the conversation slowly died as each of us tried to dissect the whole incident and ponder on what it all meant. Josef left to meet his friends and Paul and I went to our separate accomodations.

The grounds for the fesitval are very near the station. And when I arrived there I was surprised at the modernity f it. Back home in Cincinnati Oktoberfest is more quaint, there was no polka music here in Munich. Rather the flashing lights of the amusement park rides play techno, or top 40 pop. The rides were all painted gaudily, one I particularly remember was painted as a movie poster from the Matrix, and also the Fifth Element. Away from the tents, there are the aforementioned rides, and of course a massive amount of stalls for food, sausage, fish, pork sandwiches, spiced nuts, and as you make your way the scents change. In fact the entire atmosphere assaults you on all sensual fronts. One of the stalls sold skewers of fresh fruit dipped in chocolate. Only the best chocolate I have ever had in my entire life by far. In the great middle of the grounds, you see very few people who are drinking or drunk. It is the in between space for those taking it slow, or meeting up, on the far north there is a grassy hill where there is no space for all the people laying down and resting. The signs of fatigue are everywhere, one of the first people I saw was a man sobbing uncontrollably at his girlfriend who was clearly massively pissed at him. There were four or five people with hand injuries, and I saw another with the pink stains of washed blood down his shirt and a swollen nose. I thought of the drunkard from this morning, and I thought of the underside of too much joy.

Finally, dotted amongst everywhere else are the tents. Each brewhouse has its own, and the elite crowd for each is specialized. Typical revellers just go where the line is shortest, or where they happen to be near when they want a drink. Getting into the tents at peak hours is a trick akin to getting into exclusive nightclubs, you can gladhand or bribe the guard, or arrive mid morning and keep your spot for twelve or thirteen hours. Constantly people are standing on the tables and they are singing and screaming and pointing at one another. The first song I heard sung by the crowd was not an old Bavarian folk song, but rather "Knockin' On Heaven's Door." The baseline from the White Stripes' 7 Nation Army is apparently the unnofficial motif of the entire affair. If you start the first bar of the music, everyone in earshot will join in, and then they will prost you an ask you where you are from.

I don't know what tent the currents led me to, I knew at the start but now I do not. I was taking a picture when I was grabbed by a group of Englishmen. One of them made me take a gulp of his stein, they asked my name, my nationality, what I was doing there. From that point my evening was a dizzying fog of faces and names and points on maps. Imagine my night as an ornately painted vase, and then thrown from the 6th story window of my hotel room. I can pick up any piece and remember something, but I can't ever put it back together. My constant companions from the night were an Englishman from Nottingham that we called Locksley, a German couple who had stein sized plastic breasts they made everyone put over their beer at some point, a heavy metal loving man from Frankfurt who I had three aggregate hours of conversation with and never got his name, and then later Alex a local nurse, and Sussanah who was in town from Salzburg where she studied tourism management.

Locksley was fond of telling everyone I was a writer from America, and by the end of the night girls would sidle up to me and ask me the name of my television show. It was like some odd, beer fueled version of the telephone game you played when you were small. Everyone whispers a message to eachother and at the end you see how it got skewed. All information seemed to flow that way outside of and inside the tent. As the night wore on, security would breeeze by, one man holding each arm of the person being removed. They would take the offending lush and push him out in the path away from the tent and then leave. If the drunk was bold, he could come straight back, and many did.

By the end of the night my name was "America". I was standing on a table with two Brazillians and a Kiwi and we were singing the Ballad of Charlie Mopps as I had taught them. Sussanah was trying to get me to come down, pulling at my hand and when I finally obliged I twisted my ankle and came down like a ton of bricks. It was an injury that wouldn't hurt until morning, I was sure, and so Locksley bought me another mug and gave me a 7 out of 10. Saying I lost massive points for the botched dismount. Everything happening around me was going super fast in some places, and slow motion in others. The beer is strong, of course, and my German friends were gratified to hear me call Miller and Bud "bullshit". At the end I was forced to produce my pen and I left with scrawled mobile numbers and email addresses on the paper I had written my train instructions upon.

I woke up face down in my hotel bed. My laptop was playing an episode of Deadwood in loop. A maid was banging on the door. It was my birthday.

The 1st verse lyrics to the Ballad of Charley Mops

A long time ago

Way back in history

When alls we had to drink was nuthin but cup of tea

Along came a man by the name of Charley Mops

And he invented a wonderful drink and he made it outta hops

He musta been an Admiral, A Sultan or a King

And to his praises we shall always sing

Lookit what he done for us

Hes filled us up with cheer

Lord bless Charlie Mops

The man who invented

Beer beer beer

piddily beer beer beer