I thought I'd be somewhere by now

Anecdotes, asides, and all the rest on my little (mis)adventures

[somewherebynow]

The sense of home-coming--that strange passion for a particular set of inanimate things; or, at the most, an association of ideas--has no parallel in human emotions.

--R.H. Benson

[somewherebynow]

He awoke each morning with the desire to do right, to be a good and meaningful person... By evening he was fulfilled: alone in the magnitude of his grief, alone in his aimless guilt, alone even in his loneliness. I am not sad, he would repeat to himself over and over, I am not sad. As if he might one day convince himself. Or fool himself. Or convince others--the only thing worse than being sad is for others to know that you are sad. I am not sad. I am not sad. Because his life had unlimited potential for happiness, insofar as it was an empty white room. He would fall asleep with his heart at the foot of his bed, like some domesticated animal that was no part of him at all. And each morning he would wake with it again in the cupboard of his rib cage, having become a little heavier, a little weaker, but still pumping. And by the midafternoon he was again overcome with the desire to be somewhere else, someone else, someone else somewhere else. I am not sad.

― Jonathan Safran Foer

[somewherebynow]

At exactly 10:30am

My hostel (in Amsterdam) clears away the breakfast offerings and starts serving beers. And people are actually drinking. Beer. At 10:30 in the morning.

[somewherebynow]

Do you know how, a few days after your birthday, after the celebration but before the newness wears off, the first time someone asks you how old you are you forget and answer incorrectly or stutter trying to correct yourself?

That is how this trip has gone. Someone will ask where I came from and I can’t remember, or I start to say Geneva but half way through realize that actually I was in Domodossola, so it sounds like Genevossola. Then they look confused or they say No, but where did you come from before that? And I can’t remember that either so I say I started in Dublin three months ago. Then they think I’m Irish. Also, please don’t ask me the day or the date. I haven’t known in some time.

[somewherebynow]

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

--Lord Byron

[somewherebynow]

Discovering Königstein

I’ll preface these photos with some thoughts on and from my stay in Königstein. This small town (Population: 2,231) is set in Saxony, Switzerland, which is actually Germany (which is all quite confusing). I was in Dresden debating where to head next when I heard about the place, though I don’t remember exactly how. I think it wasn’t any one source but rather a blip on the radar, a peripheral advertisement or conversation overheard. At any rate, I made up my mind: I was going.

As with Andorra, it was difficult to find a place to stay. I was the only one at the hostel, a small house. The walk to the town center was half an hour. The primary grocery store flooded last year and the only real food store was a small Asian market. Inside, the woman sold lovely fresh vegetables, a variety of spices, novelty candies and teas.

I arrived in the afternoon and took a small hike right away, as the sun set rather early even then (several weeks back now). The area is best known for its table-top mountains. The Saxon Bastille (one of largest hilltop fortifications in Europe!) overlooks the town and the Elbe. I chose to hike away from it, picking my way through fields and over a few fences. The plateau of a mountain I came to cast a square shadow against the setting sun. As I got up into its belly the sky was blocked out by rock. At half a dozen crevices I had to turn sideways—they weren’t shoulder width. At the top I leaned over the edge, looking down at trees that had towered over me not too long before. I felt what the French call L'appel du vide, the call of the void. A wind picked up and I lingered at the edge letting it push me slightly nearer. A different route down dropped me on the far side of the mountain. The ground in the farm fields was soft and wet. The smell of cow patties rose to my nose. Those that produce them watched me climb back through the fence disapprovingly.

The next morning I took a train some distance with the intent of exploring another town not larger than Königstein. As I stepped off the train I saw a person at the top of a mountain whirling about, dancing or doing yoga I imagined. The sun was only just coming up and the air cool and calm; the sight was a picture. This person on the mountain inspired me such that I forfeited the exploration of the town and made for a hike to the top of this new mountain. I crossed the river, Fähre (ferry) is the only means to do so locally; it cost 1€20 one way.

Exploring that day I learned that that section of the mountains was inhabited in the Middle Ages (and quite likely before). It seemed a natural choice for defensive purposes. Catapults turned round rocks (bigger than basketballs) into serious ammunition. With the times the site was modified first into living quarters for soldiers, then as monastery. On one wall someone had taken great care to carve the year in ornate numbers, the graffiti of the time I suppose—the year was 1776.  Little things like that do a lot for one’ perception of time and space. I passed a couple of climbers who were nearly camouflaged against the massive rise of perpendicular rock they were scaling. Otherwise I was alone with the mountain.

That person I saw from below, it turned out, the one dancing at the top of the mountain, was two dimensional. He was a painted metal silhouette on a stick that pivoted. A sort of weathervane, simply put. It crushed my heart a little, the dashed expectation. As I went on I came to the conclusion that the two dimensional man inspired me (and no doubt countless others) to accomplish a three dimensional feat. I found some comfort in this.

Stints as that in Königstein provide me with great relief. Mostly I think I enjoy the nearness to nature. There is also a slowness and quietness about those little towns which is as calming as the chaos of the big cities is exciting (and therefore exhausting).

In the afternoon the sun was beginning to disappear (it didn’t set really, just faded into the grey of the clouds). It was a race to get out of the mountains and back to the river and fähre before it quit for the night. Lillenstein was the last table-top mountain I crossed. She was special, standing alone, set further back than any of the others. That last climb was agony and ecstasy. The sky was deep almost-navy colored by then and the woods were quite set in a swirling darkness. Steeper and more winding, that mountain was more difficult to navigate and I felt pressed for time. On that particular mountain I felt I lost and earned something.

Coming down the last stretch I was within sight of the twinkling lights on the river. I broke into a run. The man operating the boat was just cranking it up and he greeted me in too many words, laughing (good-naturedly) at my flushed cheeks and wild hair. The cold was setting in and I still had to walk back to the hostel but the night was welcoming. The town, the road, and the mountains were quiet and I went on my way quietly too, and content. 

[somewherebynow]

There is something about the very idea of a city which is central to the understanding of a planet like Earth, and particularly the understanding of that part of the then-existing group-civilization which called itself the West. That idea, to my mind, met its materialist apotheosis in Berlin at the time of the Wall. Perhaps I go into some sort of shock when I experience something deeply; I'm not sure, even at this ripe middle-age, but I have to admit that what I recall of Berlin is not arranged in my memory in any normal, chronological sequence. My only excuse is that Berlin itself was so abnormal - and yet so bizarrely representative - it was like something unreal; an occasionally macabre Disneyworld which was so much a part of the real world (and the realpolitik world), so much a crystallization of everything these people had managed to produce, wreck, reinstate, venerate, condemn and worship in their history that it defiantly transcended everything it exemplified, and took on a single - if multifariously faceted - meaning of its own; a sum, an answer, a statement no city in its right mind would want or be able to arrive at.

― Iain M. Banks

[somewherebynow]

Beyond Brussels

I left Brussels at 5-something bound for Berlin. I had one transfer betwixt, but enough time to nap with concern of missing it. The young man who arranged my reservation the day before had excitedly explained that he’d secured a panoramic seat for me. Then he had to explain that this was the seat just behind the driver, with windows (and, presumably, a view) in every direction. So there I was, in my seat behind what would’ve been that of the driver had the train been going the other direction. The train pulled away and the station shrank rapidly in my rear-facing panoramic view. One girl sat adjacent to me. In so far as I could tell we were the only passengers aboard. I closed my eyes.

After some time a ticket-taker came around and briefly interrupted my slumber. It didn’t take long to slip back into it. Thirty minutes later he came back. Really? I thought, but I quietly dug for my paperwork. He wasn’t interested; instead he sought to inform of a delay. The words slipped from his mouth just as the train screeched to a stop. The sun was just pinking up over 270° of endless fallow fields. At the time it did not occur to me how strange it was that a train staff member was personally informing us of a delay. Typically that information is relayed by way of a crackly speaker in a language I don’t understand. Perhaps it was a lack of sleep or caffeine or the fact that I didn’t have much of an agenda anyway: I wasn’t concerned. The train man took leave.

Awake enough, I struck up a small conversation with the girl across from me. When she boarded I’d guessed she was 15. In the morning light it was at least half again that. She was living and working in Brussels. How is that? I asked her. –Terrible! She replied without hesitation. A shy smile crept up her face. I knew it! I was ecstatic for validation of my disappointment in that city. Brussels is, of course, a center of politics for Europe and the world. It’s touted as historical and multicultural, etc, etc. All of that, I learned, is a euphemism for clusterf*ck. That city is a disaster: the people and the streets--everything. It was such a letdown, I told her sadly. For me, too, she said. There is a secret joke, she went on, that if you’ve been there more than five years you are lost. I nodded sympathetically. I’ve been there for seven, she confessed. She told me her story, how she studied tourism and got a job with a travel agency, how she hated it and sent out dozens of applications for other jobs. She was turned down for all of them and, in desperation, sent one more to the European Commission. And they hired her. She moved to Brussels having never been before. She worked for the European Center of Sports, then as a translator, then a research analyst. She switched to a private firm that developed technologies for environmental conservation efforts. I was drooling listening to her roundabout life course. I picked up from her accent that she was German. From Weimar, she explained. On this particular day she was traveling home as she did two weeks a month—a nine hour train ride with three transfers one way. As we discussed travel by train it occurred to both of us to check the time. The train hadn’t moved in more than an hour. We shared a sigh. Then, in what felt to me like déjà vu, lights went out. The train, which generally produces a soft hum, fell silent. Wide-eyed, looked at each other: What’s going on?

Suddenly my companion broke. Her voice quivered, I just want to go home. It’s been such a long year. The water in her eyes slid down her cheeks. I understood. I knew well that exasperation, the slow, twisting pain. I let her have a moment. I’m sorry, she looked at me. Don’t be, I assured her. This always happens to me. There are worse things, I know, but—I cut her off, No, no, it can be life or death, I assure you. I told her about my delay-by-suicide fiasco in Dresden. It was absurd enough to make her smile a little bit. We swapped stories about the horrors of traveling and the horrors of places we’d been and then highlights, and the topic came full circle when we talked of going home and what it meant to go home again and that mixed of hope and stress and quite desperation it incurs.

Two hours had passed. Some men in orange coveralls passed us carrying wrenches into the driver’s cockpit. We stopped them on the way out. My new friend asked them what was going on and relayed to me that the thingies that rise up from the train to get electricity from the wires above (yes, that’s the technical term) weren’t standing up like they should. Hence the lack of light. The inside of the train was now cold. There was no air circulating and no heat. Another train is supposed to push us to the next station, she said. I happened to know that the next station was Leuven. I’d been there a day prior. But that was a small train station; it didn’t serve international lines. We contemplated our misfortune in silence for a bit. The first train staff ticket guy came around again and gave us each a bottle of fizzy water and a form in German. Do you know how many of these I’ve filled out? She asked me, somewhat sarcastically. What is it? I asked her. I, too, had received a number of the slips before—a bright orange form and an envelope with a prepaid stamp. This is the reimbursement form. For every hour of delay you receive a credit on your membership. I studied the form, Huh. She was filling the boxes on the form but paused and looked at me looking at the form. I guess that isn’t very helpful for you, she offered. Two times, I said, sticking out my tongue. Two times not helpful: I can’t read it and even if I could, I won’t receive the benefit. I gave her mine so that she could reap twice the rewards and the train company would be out its full due.

Another hour passed and we shared another moment of misery at the realization that we’d both missed our transfers. Almost five hours from the time the train first slowed to an unintentional stop we started moving again and were slowly pulled (not pushed!) to Leuven. We parted ways on arrival, off to figure out what to do next and how to get where we were going. I never learned her name but I hope she made it home.

[somewherebynow]

In an exciting turn of events

The hostel’s electricity went out. Or, the lights on the fourth floor did. The windows on the hall provided just enough light to silhouette the few dozen people that were filling the halls, buzzing in confusion. A French girl from the next room over asked me to explain to the elder German woman across the hall what was happening. The poor women, easily on the far side of sixty, hadn't a clue.

Pardon? I said, remembering that frau was incorrect, but unable to recall the proper title of address. The wrinkled face looked up at me. Kein Elektricitie aber der Man komme in zwei minuten. Now the old lady was smiling. The French girl pipped over my shoulder, Tell her she needs to wait with us in the hall. There was concern that the woman, alone, would fall down. Bitte, standen hier? Der Man will personnen standen hier. Nicht zum das...rooms. She nodded slowly and then made several comments in rapid German that went flying over my head. She was smiling still, and I caught keine verstanden when she was gesturing to the French girl.

My moment in the spotlight, and no sooner did it pass than came along one for a hostel staff member in a bright red shirt wielding a wrench. The lights came back on in a literal flash, briefly blinding everyone. There were cheers. The German woman placed her hand on mine, Dankeshön, then teetered back to her room. The French girl thanked me in English. 

I stood in the hall blinking blue and purple spots and watching the halls empty again until it was as though nothing had gone awry.

Two minutes later the lights went out again.

[somewherebynow]

Eight minutes past the hour here in Belgium -- and presumably eight minutes past the hour everywhere in the world.

--Murray Walker 

[somewherebynow]

Leipzig, Dresden, and Budapest

In that order.

[somewherebynow]

I'm Switzerland; neutral as can be, and also with great chocolate.

--Neal Shusterman

[somewherebynow]

She sums it up better than I do.

[somewherebynow]

A glimpse of my mother's perspective in the time that she's joined me. It makes me laugh; it makes me glad she is here.

[somewherebynow]

Slovenia, Croatia, and Italy

Slowly, slowly catching up on backlogged photos.

[somewherebynow]

The United States, so labeled by the British

Obligatory I hate Buzzfeed, but... 1) This was cute and 2) I doubt that the average American does so well when put to the same test (to say nothing of a geography test of Britain).

[somewherebynow]

If people only knew how hard it is to be wounded, to die – they would all be meek and gentle, would not split into parties, would not incite mobs to attack one another, and would not kill. But when they are in good health they know nothing of this. When they are wounded, no one believes them. When they are dead, they can no longer speak.

--Mihajlo Lalic