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.