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.

Europe 1995 Part 6: Every Day is Wednesday in Ireland

So the boat trip from France to Ireland ended up being a whole thing.

10-20 Journal Excerpt: " It seems I'm the only passenger on the boat who isn't a trucker and who is a girl. My compartment has a Do Not Enter sign on the door. I just don't know what to think. I feel like they've made some sort of exception for me."

It was an overnight boat ride that was supposed to include meals. My book said the boat from Cherbourg went to Cork, but the only boat went to Rosslare, and I had to pay 400 francs for the ride because it wasn't covered by my pass. I was as flexible about the situation as I could be, but I wasn't feeling well at all after my cold night on the park bench.

10-20 Journal Excerpt (cont.): "A man just came into my room and was so rude. He shut my curtains and mumbled something about dinner in half-French. I'm a bad sport. I don't even want any frickin dinner if he's gonna be that way. I hope he comes back so I can refuse."

This is a photo of me and a guy named Lee at Danni's house. He and his friend James were our unofficial tour guides (okay, read PUB guides). Lee was nice but James was a little creepy - he took me to his house and his mom made me gross bacon. I went to a soccer game with them.

10-21 Journal Excerpt: "Well, I did make it to Ireland and I'm not dead. Neither is that man on the boat, which is my greater accomplishment. He did come back and I did refuse my supper. I realized later that he didn't care if I ate or not so it was myself I hurt. Don't come near me or I'll slice you I'm so sharp.
I slept about 14 hours and got up and had sugar smacks and orange juice with a bunch of truckers."

I traveled all day, got to Galway, and found Danni's house in Salt Hill at about 10:30pm. She wasn't home, so I went to the pub across the street and it was quaint and magical. That's where I met Lee, who was playing cards with a bunch of old men. I couldn't get ahold of Danni on the phone that night and no one would answer the door, so I had to sleep on the sidewalk outside her house. Unbelievable. I saw a mouse that night.

One day we rented a little adorable blue car and drove out into the Irish countryside on the wrong side of the road! We saw a castle, lots of green fields with stone walls around them, stone ruins, and the beautiful little town of Clifden at sunset. Also ate the best salmon of my life.

10-23 Journal Excerpt: "It feels like every Irish man I meet is halfway skeezing on me. Danni feels it, too. I could never live here. Tonight we're going out - the fabled Wednesday night when all of Ireland gets paid."

We went out and drank a lot. There were some great moments in there. Especially the TWO TOTALLY DIFFERENT TIMES AND DIFFERENT PLACES when we experienced an entire pub singing Delilah together in true stereotypical pub fashion. Like if you saw it in a movie you would not believe it really happened in real life. But it does.

We also spent lots of late nights walking in the rain, usually from pub to pub, or from pub to home. I ate really good soup a couple of times. There was some corn chowder that I remember.

One day when Danni had to work, I went on a day trip by myself to the Aran Islands. It's the last thing I mention in my orange travel journal before it very abruptly ends. I took a boat out to the island and the cliffs and sea were breathtaking and exhilarating and I apparently didn't take any pictures there, but I could've sworn I did. It was the last thing of note that I did before I flew home.

Oh, except I missed my flight out of Dublin. I can't exactly remember the circumstances that surrounded the flub, I think I thought my ticket was for a different day or time than it really was. The thing is, I was really sick and pretty much functioning on two cylinders, or like at least one or two cylinders less than however much is normal, so my memories are sketchy.

So I flew home. There should be something really insightful here that wraps up the whole trip with pith and insight. It was a crazy trip, where it rarely occurred to me to think about things like how much money it might cost to eat, whether there was something culturally important that I could experience, or what time my train ride might get me into my destination and whether I would be able to find a place to stay. But I let the trip happen to me, and each thing that happened was a surprise, so that's good!

It was really fun to come into such brief contact with so many people, to rely on the kindness of strangers, to leave myself open to absolutely anything and everything that could happen. Only many years later (probably when I became a parent) did it dawn on me how dangerous some situations could have become and how lucky I was to always have found my way, but overall I would definitely recommend a travel experience to all of my children when they are young and free. Being young and free is a surprisingly fleeting point in life.

Old Travel Pictures

Here are some old pictures from Amsterdam in 1995...a small part of a larger trip that I took when I was 18. A couple of these are mine that I finally scanned in, and a couple were recently sent to me from my friend Brendon, the red-haired cutie pictured below. Good times...

Sock Monsters (1-14)

Ama and I did a project recently where we took old socks that had no mates and made them into what she named "sock monsters." The big one is named Derpy and the little one is Shy. They are stuffed with cotton balls. Ama sleeps with them at night, and Rowan would give anything to get her hands on them. Ama also made up a story about them and made it into a video/musical.