Friday, April 27, 2012

Ms. S.


The Flight Back Home

I rode to the airport on an invalid bus ticket and some advice that this would work because of the low opinion that authority figures have for foreigners. Translation: act stupid, get out of trouble. It was the role I was born to play. Thankfully such theatrics were not required. I got to the airport 3 hours before my flight departed for home which was plenty of time given the structure of Tegel Airport.

The Allied Powers, as a response to the Russian blockade of West Berlin, built Tegel hastily to help accommodate the overwhelming amount of supplies needed to keep Berlin from starving. The important word there is hastily. Unlike what you might see at an airport like Munich, JFK or Charles DeGaul, there is very little polish and very little chrome here. The gate was walled off with glass partitions immediately behind the ticket counter. The security check point consisted of two x-ray machines, two metal detectors, and before that, a pair of German immigration officials. The security area, ticket counter and gate took up roughly as much square footage as my apartment. It would not be a long walk.

I gathered my belongings and did all the necessary things before leaving. I bought some overpriced tourist crap, I called my friends for a last goodbye (Lisa was the hardest but I miss everyone) and wrote my postcards. It sucked, but that's how vacations go. Cool to arrive, fun to be there and sad to leave. Above all else though, it left me with a sense that I had just done something utterly and objectively cool. The only thing I wanted to do was tell people about just how cool it was and how cool I was for doing it. It was under those conditions that I met a very nice woman I will call S.

S. was a very nice, older woman on my flight. To be more specific, she sat in the aisle seat while I sat next to the window. For most of the flight we paid attention to the movies (as I said before Midnight in Paris isn't very good) and shared little more than the arm rest. Then, about half way through the flight, with the movies off, sleep eluding us both and the complementary adult beverages working their way to my tongue and voice box, I decided to try and strike up a conversation. I found she was very nice indeed, telling me that she worked at a drug store in New Jersey. She said everything she ought to: asking me where I was from and what not. She was easy to talk to and unassuming like the alter ego of a superhero.
As I had said before, the main thing I wanted from her was an opportunity to talk through what I thought was the fairly important story about all I'd seen and done. Go me. What I got from her was a lesson in what an important story really is. I began as such, hoping to quickly move the conversation to me,

“So where have you been traveling to?”
“Bratislava.”
“Oh that sounds terribly interesting, I was in Prague a few weeks back.”
“Oh I hear Prague is wonderful but I've never gotten the chance to visit.”
“You should. It's great.”
“I'd like to, but I doubt I'll make it. I don't get to travel much.”
“So did you have a good time in Slovakia?”
“Oh yes, I grew up there.” Her lack of an accent, among other things, startled me.

I feel some background is necessary here. Czechoslovakia has a very sad history. They were sold out by the French and British and delivered to Hitler like some sort of virgin sacrifice. They were sold out by the United States as a peace offering to Stalin. They were sold out by their own for the unity of the people's revolution. There were student protest, violent crackdowns, Soviet tanks twice, listening devices, unanswered radio transmissions begging for help and forty three days of protest and general strikes. These would culminate in the first true self rule of that land since the fall of facism, and that would reveal some cracks. Namely a large crack between the Slovaks and Czech peoples. A split was necessary, and Czechoslovakia divided syllabically into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Czech Republic was obviously centered firmly around Prague. Slovakia placed its capital in a town called Bratislava.

Now you know where she went, but you also know what she came from. Cut to our hero, a near speechless Madison, trying to unravel a hairball of emotions. In that moment, I felt like I was going to laugh and cry in the same instance.

“You grew up in Slovakia? How long have you been in the United States?” Best I could do.
“Since I was a little girl. My family was trapped there after the Second World War.”
“How did you get to the United States then?”
“My mother and I were able to escape during the Prague Spring in 1968. My father had to stay behind.”

Prague Spring, for those less historically inclined, was a political experiment of sorts. Moderates in “The Party” tried loosening a number of the Draconian laws put in place by the Stalinists. One such change was a lifting of travel restrictions. As has been said in the past, people will vote with their feet if there is no alternative. Many people did and a flood of humanity left Czechoslovakia.

“What about your father?” She had previously mentioned him.
“He couldn't get the paperwork to get out.”
“You had to leave your father?” To use the vernacular, shit just got real.
“Yes, he had to stay behind. It was very hard.”
“Where did you go?”
“We were able to make it to America but that didn't last long. My mother didn't do well without my father and the only way to see him again was to give up our visas.” They had to leave.

She proceeded to tell me a story about how she and her mother moved two more times, were forced to change their nationality at each stop, and how she was eventually able reconnect with her father and move, family unit intact, first to Germany and then the United States. She told me this entire story as you or I might recount going to the grocery store or how work had gone the previous week.

She impressed upon me a deep sense that I am very lucky to be where I am. She also gave me a sense that, although I doubt any of us would willingly trade a good life for a hard one, there was an immense value in her suffering. She was able to smile through a story that was so sad I had trouble controlling my emotions while I listened to it. She told me about riding a bike down a street she used to ride on as a kid. She told me about what I'm sure was crushing poverty and long nights on both sides of the world's greatest pissing contest. She told me about some people she knew that never made it back to Czechoslovakia; particularly her parents. How do you smile while saying things like that? How are you not sad or angry or filled with self pity?

I suddenly didn't feel like talking about how great it was to go to Oktoberfest or see people smoking weed in Amsterdam. It was very cool to meet a person like her. I'm glad I did.

Ok, next blog'll be about Oktoberfest or something.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

A Stooge, A Tourist and A Turk


Once in Berlin, after a very long night of drinking with a pair of Irish rock and roll types, Eberhard and I got onto a very crowded night bus to head back to our temporary domicile. To say it was a weird night would be an understatement and we were tired. Hell, everyone was. With that in mind, neither Eberhard nor I paid any real attention to where the other was on the bus. We both knew the stop so why would we? Fast forward to about halfway home. There were two drunks sitting next to each other, one sloppy drunk and one mean drunk. The sloppy drunk most closely resembled what one might think of if a person could be the physical embodiment of an over cooked piece of pasta. Meanwhile, his counterpart wore, from what I remember, a white T-shirt and jeans. His hair was cut close to his scalp and in one hand he was still carrying his last drink from the party or bar or far rightwing mixer or whatever.
 The sloppy drunk went to get out of the bus but tripped over the mean drunk who took a marked offense to this. I happened to be the only person that had a useful angle on the matter and pushed the sloppy drunk behind me towards the door. The mean drunk was apparently in a mood to take offense to most things by now and decided he didn't like me. I can really only guess that because I don't know what he was yelling at me in German. I only know that he was saying it as hard as he possibly could, seriously red faced. It was at this point I took off my glasses for fear that he might decide to do something rash. It was also at this point that I wished I had thought to stick with my larger friend. Damn. Back to the villain, everything was getting pretty intense. A few people, in their desire to get away from this lunatic, had evacuated the space around him and given him enough room to move comfortably. Double damn. I wondered what German prisons were like. Or hospitals.
What happened next was unbelievable. I was woefully outclasses by a modern day German Goliath. He moved towards me with a grim inevitability. I raised my hands as he lunged toward me. Years of getting beaten up… I mean training came back to me. I stepped into his path, pulled my shoulder back, aimed for the nerve that runs along the underside of his jaw line, then extended my arm while twisting my hips and leaning forward. His head rocked back before he fell onto the bus floor. Everyone in the bus stood in shocked and silent admiration. One woman looked at me as if she had not seen a real man until… Ok, this didn’t happen. Back to reality.
            I don't exactly remember this guy’s size but it is safe to say that he was bigger than me. Most people are. If he had wanted to hit me, he could have. What did he decide to do here? Here are three options: sit down and forget it, punch me in the face OR Three Stooges style eye poke. Nyuk nyuk nyuk. He was clearly a tough guy, and it did hurt. Actually, it hurt a lot. I don't know how those guys did it for all those years. At this point Eberhard jumps down and grabs the gentleman. I'd tell you more about what happened there but I couldn't really see it on account of the fingers that were recently inserted into my eye sockets. With the two of us separated, he had no way to reach me. No way that is, save for the cup in his hand containing an undisclosed alcoholic beverage. Light bulb. His next move was to throw said alcohol at me... on a crowded bus... wait for it. It hits me on my left shoulder. That is some of it hits me on my left shoulder. Most of it actually went over my shoulder and landed on the giant Turkish man in the red shirt and brown vest behind me. Awesome. While he was less than fashionable he was more than angry. What came next was sort of a blur. Again, I couldn't see very well. What I do know is the Turkish guy pushed past me and planted the backpack he was carrying on the ground. As he reached into his bag, the previously brave German drunk made a hasty path to the back of the bus. What did the Incredible Turkish Hulk pull out of his backpack? The most dangerous weapon of all; a pot lid. Was it some cool weaponized pot lid maybe, with a knife edge on it? No. Was it at least a quality pot lid like the one’s from the various cookware sets I want but know I’ll never actually spend the $374 on? No. This was my kind of pot lid. Cheap crap. Cheap intimidating crap apparently. I’m not making that up. He never reached the German guy and eventually we got off the bus. Shame. I really liked that Turkish guy. And his pot lid.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

7 hits in Russia? Cool.

I've noticed in the stats that the blog is being viewed in countries where I don't know anyone. If I don't know you then I'd like you to comment on one of my post. Let me know what you think. It's cool seeing who's reading this.

Girl from L.A.


The Girl from L.A.

The main reason I went on my trip was to meet people. Ok, that isn't true. The main reason was to drink but meeting new people came in a close second. This readily led me to walking tours. They provide a captive group of travelers, most of which are alone and looking to meet and be social.
              Every conversation on one of these tours begins the same way. “What's your name and where do you live?” To say that people thought it was unusual that I was from Alabama would be an understatement. To get an idea of their reaction, imagine you met a nice man who tells you he is from the center of the Earth. I came back with a very firm belief that the rest of the world believes that there are either no roads in Alabama or a very tall wall surrounds my state. It reminds me of that scene in the new Star Trek movie where Spock sees those other Vulcans in that weird college admissions interview thing and they congratulate him on doing so well despite the fact that he's half human. I guess that's what its like. It's like someone saying you're half human. Wait, no... Never mind.
            On one of the previously mentioned tours, the free introductory tour of Prague to be exact, I met a person I found very interesting. Our conversation began as such:

Madison: “Where are you from?”
L.A. Girl: “California, you?” She was smiling at this point with the same smile she had on since the tour started. I think her cheeks were pinned.
Madison: “California, cool. I'm from Alabama.”
L.A. Girl: “WOW, Alabama? Really?!”
Madison: “...Yeah. So what part of California?” I already had a pretty good guess by this point.
L.A. Girl: “L.A. I'd ask you where you are from but I've never been to Alabama before.” Side note: I once saw a TV show that talked about Alabama. I guess she missed that one.

(Uncomfortably long pause)

Madison: “Well I've never been to California but I know where L.A. is...” In retrospect, I'm sure she had               already assumed this.
L.A. Girl: “Well yeah but, like, you've heard of L.A. before right?”
Madison: “Hhhhmmmm, L.A.?,” I said while tapping my right index finger on the center of my upper lip.                         "How do you spell it?”

(Another uncomfortably long pause)

L.A. Girl: “Aaahhhh. Very funny you.”

               At this point I acted like I had to go to the restroom and excused myself from the conversation. She seemed nice but in a fake way. And I apologize if I have offended anyone from the great state of the Govenator but if you honestly don't know enough to hazard a guess about the largest city in my state, I doubt we have much to talk about.

She never stopped smiling the entire time.

Later ya'll
Madison

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Amsterdam


Amsterdam

9/1/2011 2:51pm

On a train now to Paris from what is easily the most refreshingly strange city I've ever been to. It's a city where the cops might bust an establishment for letting its patrons smoke tobacco inside. Couldn't smell it? Oh, simple explanation. It was masked by the marijuana they mixed in with it. The buildings there look like they were built by Esher and Dahali Construction. Apparently building a city on a swamp has some disadvantages. Each house rest on wooden piles driven into the mud. If during that process an air pocket develops, the pile rots. Pile rots, pile shrinks, house sags, then BOOM your windows are crooked. That's been going on for a few hundred years so all the houses tend to lean on each other with crooked exterior molding and windows. Oh, and the houses lean toward the streets too. That's apparently a trick used to maximize the floor space of the incredibly narrow homes by, in turn narrowing the staircases which are actually more like well built ladders. Doing this allowed the Dutch East India Trading Company working stiff a proper arrangement to load cargo from the harbor into their attics via a hook and pulley, cutting out the narrow and strangely built interior passages altogether. It would be far too many years before they realized they could just build the house vertically and extend the hook outward.
            And the citizenry of Amsterdam, for all its liberal policies, is fairly conservative about its architecture. Change is bad and they have codified that. In the 1960's, the city took to rebuilding the devastated Jewish district. Trying to seem hip, the same way an old man tries to seem hip by humming along to a Jay-Z beat, they turned responsibility over to local architecture students who apparently had only three loves: architectural design, cubism and LySergic acid Diethylamide. What resulted didn't exactly mesh with its surrounds or its benefactors. People got mad, funny sounding Dutch voices were raised and they passed a law. Now the street side of every house in Amsterdam must remain architecturally as is, save for necessary repairs.
            Ok, I know you are reading this because you are enthralled by sinful topics like Dutch Architecture however I must move on to more mundane topics like legalized prostitution and drug dealing.
            Amount of time I was in Amsterdam before I saw people smoking marajuana: 3 hours. Amount of time before I saw a prostitute: 6 hours. Amount of time before I had a prostitute ask me to “come talk to her”: also 6 hours. Amount of time before I saw an attractive prostitute: 8 hours. Number of times I had to put my head down and act like I was some sort of seminar student: a lot.
It's a strange feeling walking through the Red Light district. For one, all the girls are simply standing in a window with a red light on. If it sounds like some strange Barby doll shopping experience then you are following me pretty well. It is advertising boiled down to it most, eh hum, bare components. Really the most disappointing aspects were you couldn't take pictures and there were no pimps. Apparently they ran all the pimps out of town in 2000 when they fully legalized the world’s oldest profession. At least that's what they say. Or maybe they all just got rid of the pimp hats. You know, disguised themselves. As far as pictures, I'd love to show you some of the girls in the windows just so you can get a sense of the strange normal that they have here. Alas that can't happen. I was warned by everyone I talked to that taking pictures of girls in windows would be met with a fate so disgusting I don't feel like typing it here. If you'd like to know you can message me but its really quite revolting.
            Another thing, not revolting but mildly frustrating, was trying to get directions in this town. Everyone here speaks English very well. That is to say they know the language very well. They SPEAK our language quite poorly on account of the most ridiculous sounding accent in the western world. A typical conversation started like this, on account of I speak almost no Dutch,

“Hello, sprechts du English (do you speak English)”
“Osh, Yesh Ish speaksh Engshlichsh.”

And they don't just speak our language like that, they speak their own language in a similarly maddening way. Example: the place I was staying was on Spiur Strasse. Don't ask me what that means. In any case, Spriur in Dutch is pronounces Sproo. So I would ask someone if they knew where Sproo Strasse was because you inevitably get lost in this maze of a city. They would respond, “Sproo Strasse? Oh you mean Sproo Strasse! Yesh, Thatsh eashy....” Ok, maybe that isn't a perfect Dutch accent, but what they said sounded similarly ridiculous.
            And just so we're clear, the most risque things my money went to was a tour of the Red Light district where I learned most of the things I told you here and a pub crawl. Sorry to disappoint. By the way, just looked out the window at the French country side. I am the luckiest man alive. Till later friends.