Europe 1995 Introduction and Excuses

When I was 18 years old, I went on a trip. It was a Eurail Pass-centered journey with no real itinerary or timeline (but with a couple of planned specific destinations, including a flight into London and out of Dublin) that ended up covering parts of northern Europe, Scandinavia, and the British Isles. I believe that the original idea was celebratory, sort of a graduation present to myself, but the trip also ended up being a very well-timed lesson in self-reliance as I embarked on my life as a for-real grown-up.

This is what I looked like in 1995:

 

I kept a few things from the trip, like a map where I tracked everywhere I'd been and my original Eurail Pass voucher thingy where I kept track of all the times/places that I used the pass. I don't know where those things are now. But I do have a small, orange journal where I kept THE MOST random account of the trip and obsession-level accounts of my hunger, what and how long it had been since I'd eaten, and how many days it had been since I showered.

So now, in 2014 (almost 20 years after the trip), I am going to use the orange journal and my own memory (eek!) to document/recreate the trip here in 6 parts. I will include select parts of the journal (saving the reader and myself from the embarrassment of the worst of it) and photos that I scanned out of a photo album at my parents' house last month. This is going to be fun! Lowering expectations in...3...2...1...

Europe 1995 Part 1: Hungry/Stinky in England

 September 20, 1995: Danni and I flew into Heathrow Airport.

9-20 Journal Excerpt: "I have to go through my backpack to see if they took anything out. The customs people ripped open our padlocked bags instead of telling us first so we could open them. They ripped the whole zipper off Danni's so she threw it away at the airport. Traveling is not as easy as a person would think."

I think it's very finny that I came to this conclusion on THE FIRST DAY of this 6-week-long trip, especially with the knowledge of how many more things I would go through before the trip was over. Not wrong, just comically premature.

We spent four days wandering around sightseeing in London. That's where I got all these picture of me standing in front of old buildings. We stayed in a few different cheap hotels.

9-21 Journal Excerpt: "We called ahead to a super cheap motel but couldn't find it once we got here so we're in a different one. It's called Kensington Court and it is SKEE-ZEE. The toilet's on the 3rd floor and we're on the 1st."

9-21 Journal Excerpt: "Now I must go explore and find parliament so Danni will agree to leave this country."

I think Danni and I mostly ate and drank and walked around. I mean, what else is there to do, really? As I remember, we argued a lot and took out all the stresses and frustrations of traveling inexperience on each other.

9-22 Journal Excerpt: "We got back to our motel after Danni decided that we didn't need any beer only to find out that Danni wanted some beer.I personally was exhausted and famished. So we ate some very very bad food at KFC and bought some Beck's beer and went home to drink it."

I got a headache that night and couldn't drink the beer that we eventually bought.

What I wrote on the back of the above photo:
"Me and the English parliament in London - quite an impressive thing except it wasn't that great cause I was starving to death and Danni didn't care."

On 9-22-95, we took a train together to Liverpool, and stayed there for one night before we went our separate ways. Danni stayed in England and worked at a pub (she had a work visa) and I continued on my rambling journey. 

9-23 Journal Excerpt: "So then I wandered off and left Danni at the hostel and I wasn't sad at all because all we've done for the last week is bicker. We do not travel well together. I got a cab and went to the bus station - I got there at 12:45 and the only bus from Liverpool to Newcastle left at 1:00, so I think it was meant to be. I got into Newcastle at 7:30 and had a mini nervous breakdown anxiety attack thing." 

I have to forgive myself for being a bad traveler, because to be fair, this was a trip of many firsts. I had never traveled alone before, never been off the continent of North America, never handled foreign money (and remember this trip was before the Euro, so I had to change money EVERY SINGLE TIME I crossed a border, sometimes daily), and never even been on an airplane flight before the big pond jump. It's no small wonder that I had no idea what I was doing, and that I floundered a bit at times.

Also, I still get lost pretty much everywhere I go.

9-24 Journal Excerpt: "I was originally going to go from England to Denmark, but I found out I'd have to wait 3 days to go there. I found out there was a ship leaving today for Hamburg, Germany and decided to take it, so I called and they said there wasn't but one was going to Sweden at 8:00pm. So I changed my mind again.
I headed toward the dock and 3 hours later I got there (the metro wasn't working so I took some confusing buses, then walked the last 1/2 hour). I go to the dock and the chick told me there was no boat going to Sweden but there was to Germany and it was leaving at 2:00pm so I just made it."

I submit that entry as proof (in case you were skeptical) that I had no itinerary. I decided within a few hours to go to Denmark, then Germany, then Sweden, then Germany again. No sweat.

I took a ship called the King of Scandinavia, which was huge and had restaurants and casinos on it. There was no place to change money when I got off the boat, and I needed bus fare to get anywhere:

9-25 Journal Excerpt: "When I got off the boat, expecting to find a money changing place, there wasn't one. So some woman gave me two marks and told me she hoped it would be enough. The bus actually cost 2.40 and I was so unhappy and screwed that the bus driver lady let me on."

And so began my mainland adventure.

Europe 1995 Part 2: Germany-ish

I seemed to get my emotions under control and found a stride of sorts when I got to Germany. I found the people to be friendly and helpful, and had lots of luck finding people who spoke English.

9-26 Journal Excerpt: "This morning I got lost again and finally found the train station and got my Eurail validated. The station was so big and nice that I just hung around for a while and ate my sack lunch. It's been raining all day so all my stuff is wet, and my towel has disappeared. Hmm."

9-27 Journal Excerpt: "Right now I'm in Alborg, Denmark after a full day of traveling. I lost my towel at the hostel yesterday and shattered my soap bottle and cleaned it up with my washcloth. So now I have no soap, no toothpaste, no shampoo, and no towel of any sort. I was gonna get some toothpaste earlier today but a tube of Crest cost 25DKK and that's more than I could deal with."

I went a little bonkers and cut my hair in the hostel bathroom with a little plastic scissors from my sewing kit. I do that sometimes. That's the explanation for my hairdo from this point on.

I seemed to always be in a big hurry to get going, even if I'd spent a whole day getting to where I was going. I would just sleep one night, get up and start going again. I think it was nervousness.

9-29 Journal Excerpt: "Yesterday I traveled nonstop from 7:00am until 9:30pm, and I accidentally came all the way to Tranby. I took a bus, then a train, then a boat, then a train, and then a bus.
The boat ride between Fredrikshavn and Oslo was so incredibly long - I got a ticket that was so cheap I didn't even get a seat."

I spent the 9-hour long boat ride hanging out with a bunch of men, including a German and a man from Minneapolis who had a cabin in Norway. Also, this:

9-29 Journal Excerpt: "There was a half-retarded drunk Norwegian who kept taking pictures of us (me, the German, and the old guy). He stole my book and my banana, but I got the book back."

The drunk guy was apparently named Wiggo, and later sent me an envelope with a bunch of the pictures he had taken. That's where these pictures all came from.

I bought Atlas Shrugged (by Ayn Rand) while in England, and read it throughout the trip. I accidentally left it somewhere in Dublin right at the very end of my trip - I can't remember if I had finished reading it. Anyway, there it is on the table next to the box of orange juice.

 The older guy told me a bunch of interesting information about Norway, like that there are 22 distinct dialects still spoken (at the time, anyway) in Norway. He was a retired captain. He was also a really nice guy. And the other guy (the German, named Michael) and his girlfriend gave me a ride in their car from the port to the train station when we arrived in Oslo.

I remember very clearly when the ship arrived in Oslo. It was dark out, and there were lights all over what were either fjords or a bunch of pointy islands, and we pulled through the darkness with sparkling lights all around us. It was so beautiful! It felt like I was entering a magical place.

Europe 1995 Part 3: Well-Fed but Munchy in Norway

September 29, 1995: I arrived in Oslo and was taken under the wing of my old friend Dag. Dag had been an exchange student in Bismarck, ND when we were both 15 or 16 years old. I called him from a gas station and he and his girlfriend came and picked me up.

9-30 Journal Excerpt: "I met his girlfriend Josephine and she had on very ugly shoes. High-heeled converse. His mom fed us hotdish with ground beef and corn in it but I ate it and I loved it. Bought some shampoo finally so my hair is clean. I slept with one of those big soft things. I am going on a DR with Dag when he gets out of school this afternoon."

Dag and I were both 18 at the time of my visit, but I had finished high school the spring before, and he had one more year to go because in Norway school goes for 13 years instead of 12. So yes, I was actually staying at his mom's house, and she took very good care of me.

I spent almost a week in Oslo with Dag, and met all of his friends and smoked in most of their living rooms. It was quite a culture shock for me, but very fun to just eat and watch movies in Norwegian and play board games. Most people were shy about speaking English even though I think they all could, but I don't remember it bothering me too much.

Dag took me to a cabin in the woods that belonged to one of his friends. It had no running water and an outhouse, but was otherwise very nice and cozy:

10-2 Journal Excerpt: "We saw moose tracks and looked at the stars from the roof (they even had a lawn chair up there). We had cake and bread with chocolate sauce and red jello with vanilla sauce and for breakfast we had hot dogs and mashed potatoes wrapped in lefsa. Mmmm. My hunger never goes away cause I'm always st****. Josephine keeps giving me gross licorice candy. She has a mini backpack. I smoked h*** out of the cold ground and drank it in tea."

10-4 Journal Excerpt: "I ate lamb yesterday and tonight Dag's mom made crab claws (with mayonnaise?) on bread. This morning after a nice driving tour of Oslo, Linda (Dag's mom) let me off at the train station and now I'm on my way to Trondheim."

After being around so many people for a week and having a lovely Norwegian mother to feed and take care of me, it felt strange to be on my own again. My biggest impression/memory of Trondheim is pain/headache. I think I had a migraine bout there. It was very picturesque, but the pain overshadowed any other specific memory. Also, the hostel I stayed at was at the top of a very steep hill, and after wandering aimlessly/lost each day it felt nearly insurmountable, as I remember.

The caption I wrote on the back of this picture:
"The view from the Old Town Bridge in Trondheim, Norway - one of the only good pictures I've ever taken."

Europe 1995 Part 4: What Just Happened?

 What I wrote on the back of this picture:
"My great big mess in my room at the Trondheim hostel - 10 beds and 1 me, hard to sleep with 200 drunk teenagers beating down your door."

It's the only picture that I know of that I took inside a hostel, which is a shame since I stayed in so many (and some of them were really lovely). In Trondheim I bought a rosemaled plate and a Norwegian sweater.

10-6 Journal Excerpt: "I'm sitting at the Trondheim train station waiting for a train to take me - eventually - to Copenhagen. It's cold, but I have on my new sweater and my jacket. This later train will get me to Copenhagen much sooner and cheaper than the one I missed this morning.....On the train - we just passed through Hell:)"

This is what I wrote on the back of this photo:
"My cute backpack saving my seat on a train on a ferry. My pack was nice to cuddle with."

This was a train that they took apart and put on a boat to cross some water (?) and then put back together. You can see trucks and other stuff that was in the storage area of the boat out the train's window. I got off the train and went up on the deck, which was a bright spot in that long, tired train ride.

10-7 Journal Excerpt: "Last night I got into my sleeping bag on the train and just sat there - everyone else getting on the train looked at me, but I really wanted to sleep. So I finally got to sleep and the next thing I knew a steward woke me up and said, "Stockholm?" So I freaked out and put all my stuff away, put my shoes and coat and backpack on and hurried off the train. It was 1 in the morning and no one else got off, so I asked a man if this was Stockholm and he said, "Oh no, you've got 5 more hours to go.""

On 10-9, I explain in my journal that I left Copenhagen earlier than I planned to "because I hate it." Okay. I think the bus system was difficult to use, the city was really spread out, and I was desperately lost too much of the time to enjoy anything. Also, I claimed to have seen green, toxic sludge in the street, and a weirdo followed me around and freaked me out.

On 10-10, I explain that I am in someplace called Roskilde "because I took the wrong train." I eventually made it back to Germany and was immediately relieved (not sure if it was Hamburg again or Kiel). I was overall very happy when in Germany and Norway, mostly because the people were nice to me.

Navigation was a huge stressor throughout the trip, even moreso than language. Food was a close second.

On 10-11, I made it to Amsterdam.

Europe 1995 Part 5: What Day is it? in Amsterdam

10-11 Journal Excerpt: "Well, I've made it to Amsterdam. I spent all day on a train with a bunch of businessmen smoking cigars. I almost died. I walked out of the train station and felt this weird static energy - I instantly got so excited I almost burst. I don't know why, this city is just so beautiful!"

I had absolutely no intention of staying in Amsterdam for longer than a day or two, and somehow burned a week there. I think it was a combination of travel fatigue and finding a place that felt safe (I met and hung out with a lot of people I felt very comfortable with at the hostel), combined with constant, momentum-dissolving partying.

10-13 Journal Excerpt: "Amsterdam is turning out to be very cool. I ate so much yesterday my budget is shot. I had spacecake last night at this nice little bar. There were two cops sitting in there while we were smoking and it doesn't matter. Cops are not threatening here. It's so weird.
I ate at KFC and had pizza twice and have been drinking lots of beer - more than I should."

I stayed at Bob's Youth Hostel, right in the heart of the red light district. I'd never seen anything like it. I remember that there was a Heineken wall dispenser machine in the lobby of the hostel that sold cans of beer. In the mornings they made big vats of scrambled eggs and plain white bread. Somehow, each day it was exactly what I wanted for breakfast.

10-15 Journal Excerpt: "I was going to leave Amsterdam yesterday. I checked out of Bob's and took my stuff to the train station. Then I sat here all day til it was obvious that I wasn't going anywhere. So I got a room at a crappy youth hotel and came back to Bob's this morning to try and get a bed. Last night a couple people in my room had some stuff stolen while we were sleeping so the cops came."

I hung out for a couple of days with a guy from New Zealand named Brendon. A year or so ago, he found me on Facebook and we exchanged pictures of each other in Amsterdam (look ahead 2 blog entries). I also went to the carnival with a guy named Kirk and went on a ride that was so fun we spent the whole next day trying to get even more messed up so we could go on it again. I've since heard that there are things of actual cultural relevance that one can do when visiting Amsterdam. The ride was called the Evolution.

10-15 Journal Excerpt: "There's a cute boy with a stud through his tongue who gave me a great b*** hit. When I get hungry I have a beer. I learned how to play backgammon. Still need to go to the brewery. Tried once but got lost."

What I wrote on the back of this picture:

"My friend Kirk at Central Station in Amsterdam just before we left for Paris (at Paris we split up).Look at all the biked not locked up. We had fun at Hill Street Blues and on the Evolution. "I'm going nowhere later"

10-17 Journal Excerpt: "I had no idea what day it is so I asked everyone and no one knew. I found out from some guy - he just got here so he still knows. Tony and Ante left last night. They invited me to Biarritz France - I almost went but finally decided to stay." 

I have no idea who Tony and Ante are. On 10-19, I finally left Amsterdam and took the train to Paris. I spent an hour or two there, just long enough to buy some chocolate for lunch. I remember walking up the flight of stairs from the underground train station and look briefly at the street so that I would know what Paris looked like. I'm completely retarded. There I switched trains and headed toward the coast to a town called Cherbourg, where my guidebook said there was a boat to Ireland.

10-19 Journal Excerpt: "Just got to Cherbourg at 12:30am. I figured I'd hang out at the train station for a few hours, head to the ferry place and catch the 1st ferry. Well, it turns out this town isn't very big, and about 15 min. after our train stopped, a mna came around to lock up the station. So I have no money and am on my way to the ferry place. How could I have timed this out better?"

I wrote in my journal that this town had its sewer dump in the middle of town, but in retrospect, I wonder if it isn't more plausible that I was wandering the outskirts of town.

Long story short, I wandered the streets of Cherbourg in the dark for hours, finally hunkering down on a park bench where I froze my ass off for a couple hours. Finally, I decided to keep walking so that I wouldn't die, and at 4:00am I found a Quality Inn. The guy at the front desk was nice, but he looked at me like I was an alien from Outer Space. I'm sure he wondered where I'd come from at that time of night. I checked in, took a hot shower, and went to bed. 

I believe this is where the bad cold I got in Ireland began.