Familiar Surroundings

It's getting dark now, and the lights have flickered to life on the pier.  But it's not night yet.  The stars aren't out, and the sun's glow is still lingering deep orange on the horizon.  The ocean's a rippley blue lake reflecting the sky.  And it's cold.  An LA chill that just barely bites through my thin pull-over.  There's three middle-aged maritime seamen singing songs and playing a beat-up old stained-wood guitar.  This end of the pier is an Eden to them.  This dry spring Christmas weather.  They love it, but only because it's something new and incredible to them.  They're not from here.  They don't love it like I do.  These numb fingers is not a braving for them.  Moving across the page with a graphite trail in tow.  And I feel like their moving is keeping me sane.

Munich: The Hard Rock Syndrome

We get to Munich in the late afternoon and, fuck, there isn't another train to Zurich until tomorrow morning.  Looks like we're spending the night here.  Here?  But where?  "Is there a hostel around here?" Grant asks and looks around outside the station.

"Dude, I don't know if I can afford a hostel right meow," says I.
"Me neither," says Max.
"Yeah... And this place looks too nice for hostels.  It's all fancy-shmamsy hotels," says Grant.  "Let's just go threesies on a locker and rock the night in the station.  Copenhagen style."  We're in.  It's something like four euros total for the night, and we shove all our bags into one of the deep station lockers, squeeze the door shut and turn out the key.

[stop]

Munich, mother fuckers.  Drink it in like a hefty German brew.  But chug it because the sun's already low on the summer horizon and we have to be in Zurich tomorrow.  If there's one thing I learned to do in Santa Cruz though, it was to gulp down beers.  Relax the jaw and open the throat, but get your tongue in there to get all flavors as you pour it into your gullet.  Ladies, take notes because that's definitely what she said.  We've got about eight hours to kill in this rich city, but there's no rush.  The less time we spend sleeping on the grit-grimy station floor the better, so we take the place at a casual stroll.

Stroll right into some glitzy hotel we do, near the station, and pick up a city map, get our bearings, and stow it, heading towards the center on foot.  Through a not-too-old looking castle gate with battlements on top and, voila, it's a wide pedestrian street straddled on both sides by boutique shops, department stores, and grossly overpriced restaurants.  It reminds me, strangely, but quite strongly of the Promenade back in Santa Monica, and I chuckle a little.  "So this is Munich, huh?  Super old-time-y German, this place."

Max and Grant laugh a retort.  The spirits are high and light, in part, I think, due to that fact that our shoulders also are without those cursed packs on.  And we point and giggle at funny things, and side-hand comments and quote movie nostalgia to one another, and get giddy in the legs at the prospect of Mike's so-soon rendezvous.

Into another square, Marienplatz, and ohh, ahh, the town hall.  Finally, something that opens my eyes to this capitol city, that arrests my attention after being unceremoniously courted by the mundane open-air Munich mall walk.  It's a menacing building, especially with the dreary cloud cover, overtly gothic and medieval, all pointy, stone-framed windows and prickly spires and a bell-tower.  Not unlike Prague.  But at the same time, markedly different.  Not so ominous, and with a definitive tint of Bavaria that tastes rich to the eyes like dark chocolate.

From the middle of Marienplatz, there's a pair of bell-towers looming not too far behind the town hall and, well, I love bell-towers, so we romp in their general direction.  We amble past an old-looking building or white walls and old, glass windows that shone unclear with a yellow from within.  It said HOFBRAUHAUS in bold letters, and a thin metal street sign hung off the side with the initials HB and a crown all in gold.  We had a sneaking suspicion that they served beer inside and when we came around to the front it was quite obviously a bustling, rambunctious beer hall.  "Ohhh!  Say what?  We should def get dinner here," says Grant.  And Max and I agree.  But first, the bell towers.

There's a lurch in the stomach and a tick of the head because across the skinny walk-street from the Hofbrauhaus is that silly staple we've seen now in every city of our journey.  No, not a kebab joint.  And it's not a McDonald's, but that's certainly closer.  "Oh, hey look.  Another Hard Rock."  It's the Hard Rock Munich, and it gives me a moment's pause, probably the first Hard Rock to do so, because it has been in every city.  We've stumbled upon each one, starting with original in London.  It's that something so American, like hearing the same pop songs on the radio over here, listening to the same music and I guess that's what it thrives on.  A universal love of music.  That attraction to rock legends' guitars on the walls, to be so close to a thing so timeless, whose strings echo with distortion through the ages and, for better or for worse, probably always will.  The good, the bad.  The bands we loved, and the one hit wonders.  Served up with chicken wings and hamburgers.  Now who wouldn't love that?  Who cares what country your from.  What a tourist trap-looking kind of a place, and there's some fat boys coming out with their Hard Rock t-shirts.

We'll pass though, walking past, down skinny streets and through tiny, old squares and courtyards to my lovely bell towers.  They're at the head of some grand cathedral called the Frauenkirche.  It's simple brick and baroque-Italian.  No spires or prickles here.  Just a red tile roof we can barely make out, tall windows, and green plumes (of bronze, I'm guessing) at the tops of the towers.  "This thing looks old," I observe with a guise of inflection.

"Mmm, indeed."  And we stand at the entrance and ponder it for a while, necks craned to put the whole thing in perspective.  There's some ancient stone-carved cartoons on the side, and I'm no historian, but the general theme of it seemed to be rape.  Got to love religious fervor.

After a minute or two Max chimes in, "So is it Hofbrauhaus time yet?"  And the trance is over and my stomach makes it's presence known.

"Yeah, dude.  I'm ready for some beer and bratwurst."

"Bratwurst!"  So fun to say in a German accent.

Prague: Nighttime Marathons

It's 22:00 and we've got our pretty clothes on.  I've only got one nice button-down shirt, and it's on.  It's some shade of gray, which I don't think ever gets old or blase.  Grant and Max have their black ones on, and we've all got our decent shoes on for once.  I don't think we wore them at all in Berlin.  Well, maybe at the beginning when we were in the hostel.  Hostels always demand the best, I guess.  There's three Austrians (not Australians) in our room also and we all get proper sloshed and riotous before we stumble out and towards the center of Prague.  Someone, I can't remember who, told us of some magical six-story club that we absolutely needed to see.  According to the map though, it seems kind of far, and before we're even at the old market square we run into a horde of drunkards, riotous and swaying as well, and among them is, of course, the dastardly duo, Bobby and Ryan.  It's the pub crawl, and they're on the last leg, going to the last bar.  What are the odds.  I hadn't even gotten their phone numbers and well, I don't have a phone so I'd thought that chance encounter after the weed deal would be our last.  But the fates had other plans, I suppose.  And we're already wasted so we forget all about the six-story mega-club and mesh with the crawl and end up in some basement bar with two big dance floors and free shots at the door.  Works for me.  Bobby throws me a courtesy cig and we just burn 'em down inside.  Smoke hang heavy over the whole place, even with the AC on, but it's a blast.  A dance riot.  A bunch of English girls and Aussies drunk off pub crawling, grooving to an eclectic mix of American pop songs from across the decades.  A lot of Michael Jackson, and thank goodness for that.  Grant, Max, and the Austrians leave around 2:00, they're tired.  But Bobby and Ryan are still down to rage, so I stay and we rage right up until they play us all out of the place after last call with an old Sinatra number.  Worth it, it's 4:00.  I say good-bye to Bobby and Ryan, that high school nostalgia, and I don't really know when I'll see them again, if ever.  But hell, it's a romping good time.  I figure I'll just go back the way I came back to the hostel, and it's a bit far so I pace myself at a fast jog.

Surprisingly fast considering how drunk I am.  And maybe I'm too busy realizing how fast I'm going to notice how fucking lost I've gotten because as far as getting lost goes, I'm pretty much peaking.  I'd made a wrong turn somewhere, I think, and I flat-out forgot to make a handful of them.  After thirty minutes, I'm sick of running, but too pissed off and aggravated not to.  The streets are all empty and lit orange gothic and eastern European by the streetlights.  They fork and split and splinter off in every direction at times, and I haven't the faintest clue of which one to take.  No cars, no people.  No clue.  Miraculously, I stumble upon the train station, and there's flashes before my eyes of our night-time walk to the hostel the first night we got here.  The place certainly isn't as inviting by myself.  It's rather gaunt and creepy actually, but I'm too drunk and annoyed to care.  And my legs are starting to burn.  Apparently, I'm also too drunk to even remember how we got to the hostel that first night because before I know it, I'm lost again.  Maybe it's the booze, or maybe it's the hour, but every street looks like the one the hostel's supposed to be on.  Same looking buildings, same looking intersections.  It takes another thirty minutes to find the stupid place.  The little walkway to the back, next to the closed tattoo parlor.  I'm panting and sweating in the lobby as I tell the young Australian (not Austrian) man behind the counter that I don't have my room key (Grant and Max had it).  He must've thought I was crazy, sprinting up into the place at five in the morning.  "Well, that's all right," he says regardless.  "What's your room number?"

"Umm..." Please remember.  Remember. "309?  Yeah, that's it."

He fiddles around on the keyboard for a bit, asks to see my ID, then hands me a key, "Here you go, mate.  No worries."

"Why, thank you," I say.  "And good-night."

Insight: I'm Leaving

Life's one of those funny things, a thing that laughs with deep breaths.  Screaming through the lungs, pumping red to extremities, and tearing from joy or sadness lest the weed's dried my eyes out.  I still feel it though, something I can't quite put my finger on.  And it's slowly seeping out.

Paris: Short of Breath Days

I hate these days.  When the sun's shining, and the air is dry and for no other reason, it's hard to breathe.  The days are floating by now like those cotton-ball, soft breezy clouds over Haussmann's Paris in the 14th.  It's not the brevity of our time here in the Old World that's choking my throat, slurring my words out in a soft mumble with no breath behind them.  It's just asthma, I figure.  That's what it feels like anyways, from everything I've ever heard on the subject.  I never had asthma as a child, but then again, these lungs of mine aren't what they used to be back in days of AYSO and swim team.  I've got a lot more spliffs to my name now and that's just one of those things you don't think about too much because the numbers'll make you dizzy, and you can almost feel the tar nestling in your insides.  It's just something to take note of.  Be weary.  Let it be acknowledged, but don't stop living.  Ever.  Snags like this are a dime a dozen on our vacation turned feat of survival, and I'm just trying to suck all the life I can out of it.  And out of my ever-dwindling bank account.  So as we're walking from Marie's with a Carrefour baguette and Tucs and stolen Carrefour cheese and meats and Granini fruit juice, to a lovely park she told us about in the south of the city adorned with bronze statues on tall white columns, I suck again, inward, pull the air in through my nose and hard down with my diaphragm to fight against the close.  Just another thing to fidget with, another road-block to bypass.  No sweat.  And now it's time for lunch in the green grass and a spliff and an epic tournament of gentlemen's hearts.  Ah, summer in Paris.  We play 'til the shade draws from the side tree grooves.  It's a slow sun these days.  Nico knows.

Tell Sylvia Her Library's to Die For

Fuckin' writer types.  They play with gullibility as a cat would with a ball of yarn, mildly amused because they know the privileged truth.

But here I am, always the hypocrite because who am I kidding, that yarn ball's damned fun to paw around with, just so long as I'm not the one coming unraveled.  Touche you company of Shakespeare.  Your wit is well-noted.  It's a pity I won't be joining your ranks because I truly love this place.  But maybe it's not so bad.  I hate that haughty upper lip of proclaimed writers, assholing their way smartly through life's bowels because the recognition of that privileged knowledge and tongue feels so good.  But it leaves a taste of shit in my mouth.  And I know, or fuck, I fucking hope that air never becomes my defining one.

Shh, now.  I think Sylvia's listening.  I wish, maybe, that she'd smile at my words and pull up a rug corner for me.  Oh, hey!  I think I see her though falling slowly before this one window here upstairs, and she's content, alive in that magic space of hers.  Hard to catch she is, and discreet too.  I almost miss her.  She's spinning webs of silk thread instead of words now, with eight arms and eight eyes, not two.  What more would a perpetual reader and writer want.  More eyes to read with and more arms to write with.  I'd like to see her web sometime, but I won't ask questions.  I bet she's the silent type.

Quote of the Day: Inside There's A Child

"Other men are the lenses through which we read our own minds."


~ Ralph Waldo Emerson