Delays etc.
Thank you all for the kind comments. Really.
I think I was supposed to be doing something this week. Oh. Yeah. That uh road trip thing.
The plan was to leave on Wednesday because I’m completely fucking delusional. Fly back from Paris and leave two days later for two months on the road with no real plan whatsoever? Why not.
Well it turns out there are a couple reason why not. Mostly that it takes a few days to get over jet lag. It seems to take a couple more if you’re older or ignored it the first time. And I can’t prove it, but I’m convinced going west is harder than east. Either way, I didn’t do shit for a couple days.
I’m okay with this because I didn’t waste a week in Paris dealing with jetlag. Just sort of sucked it up and with a combination of adderall and melatonin, immediately got on schedule. There was still a breaking point but I don’t think that has anything to do with jetlag.
The breaking point: There’s a point in any new country where the small and large frustrations of figuring out how to do anything at all comes to a head and you just fucking break, usually over something small. In Switzerland, that point was when I couldn’t figure out how to get my car out of a parking garage. Dude behind me was yelling in Swiss German. And, apologies to the Swiss, you’re mostly alright. But that’s not an accent made for yelling. It’s fucking ridiculous honestly. I just fucking started crying. He decided to stop being a dick and helped me out. In Berlin, I hit that point when I couldn’t figure out how to get a fucking shopping cart at Lidl, the local grocery store. Just, started crying and went back to the flat.
These aren’t complicated things and neither complication was life or death. But you land over there and everything’s in a language you don’t really understand, or you do but not at that goddamn speed. You’ve gotta figure out how to get a train ticket. Get on the right train. Cross a city. You’re tired as shit. For every stupid reason, your credit card doesn’t work. They’ve got chips now. The next time, you’re stoked because you finally got a chip card and they’ve moved to all tapping cards and your card doesn’t tap. Everyone’s annoyed at you because you’re the equivalent of that asshole who stops in the doorway. Sometimes literally because you didn’t realize you’ve gotta push a button to open the goddamn train doors. Now you’ve gotta switch trains. You go the wrong way. Everything hurts. And that’s just getting to your goddamn hotel or friend’s flat. After a couple days, you hit a wall. Some dumb thing. And it’s all just too much.
In Paris, it was an umbrella. Couldn’t fucking find one. I know they’re sold everywhere. Shut up. Obviously once I had a goddamn umbrella, I saw umbrellas everywhere. But I was heading to an event. It was fucking pouring. I had to walk. Stopped at the… equivalent of a bodega. And asked the guy if he sold umbrellas. Did a few hand motions that may have indicated an umbrella but maybe wigs. I don’t know. He looked at me like I’d asked if he sold cocaine. He might’ve sold cocaine. Not umbrellas. Next corner—pharmacy. Worth a shot. I don’t think I’ve ever actually bought an umbrella. I’ve worked at bars. Umbrellas just show up in your bag like t-shirts with liquor logos. But if I need one here, I’m pretty sure I can find one where we find shit, at our stores that sell too much shit. But goddamn it’s nice when you need an umbrella, probably.
Look I love Europe as much as anyone but every goddamn store is really fucking specific. A pharmacy is a pharmacy. There’s no section for dog food or light bulbs. I’ve seen dog food stores, but if I ever have to buy a light bulb in Europe, I assume I’m just fucked. But no, the pharmacy didn’t sell umbrellas. I knew the grocery store wouldn’t have them but I tried anyway.
This should’ve been the breaking point. But since I’d just talked about the whole breaking point thing the day before, I started laughing, maniacally, while trudging through the rain like a fucking lunatic who didn’t own an umbrella. Someone at the bookshop gave me an umbrella. People leave them at bookshops as often as bars apparently.
Anyway. The good news is there’s no real learning curve to coming back to the states. A little disappointment—why can’t we have trains, or strikes for that matter. But I’m getting a late start. The current goal is to leave this place by Sunday. I hope.
Had a moment like that in the mountains outside of Sarajevo. Had terrible lung infection & wasn’t allowed to join my class at the youth brigades. At hotel, trying to order tea with lemon. (Doctor’s orders) Waiter said they had no lemon. (In late July.) Exhausted, I remembered how my comrade Vlado (Walter, from Cleveland) taught me how to swear. I wheezed out the curse, just loud enough for the waiter to hear. A few minutes later, he appeared with a saucer of lemon slices. In tears, I thanked him profusely in Serbo-Croatian. And drank my damned hot tea with lemon.
West is definitely tougher than east. Rest up, we ain't kids anymore. And breaking points... You captured it, there are things no one prepares you for or understands why you can't figure out intuitively. Like those pictorial signs I can't read. In Germany I once drove through a church.