Das Ende

[This is it, last post. It’s been quite a ride, and I thank you for bearing with me. What follows are two random things that were left over in my notebook. I didn’t save them for last because they provide a neat wrapup or summarize the trip -- although one could argue that the second thing really does, in some sense, embody the spirit of a true Eurotrip. I’ll return to regular old blogging at my usual location in a few days (even though WordPress is more stylish, user-friendly, flexible and all-around cooler than my clunky old blog, I’m one of those people who always favors the runt). And yes, I am buried up to my neck in sand in the picture below. Man, I miss Barcelona.]

PACK OF DOGS THEORY

“Is our friend gone?”

“Yep. You missed her.”

“Too bad. She was cool.”

“She was cool. Why do we always meet the cool people when we’re about to leave?”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had this conversation with Chotchsky. At the beginning, I dismissed the appearance and disappearance of fun people as simple happenstance. Eventually, though, I started to see a pattern.

I liken the situation to that of a roaming pack of dogs (which, essentially, we are – dogs with backpacks). The alpha males lead a herd, and other dogs join in and walk along for a day or two, then head off on their way. It’s bittersweet when your crew dismantles, but you all part with light hearts because everyone is moving on to uncharted territory and will immediately join a replacement herd.

So here’s a shoutout to some of the characters we met along the way: Jess. Amelie. Classic Scott. Classic Dingus. Andy. Natalie. UVA girls. Callie the Australian.

I’ll be pouring a few drops of Beck’s/Berliner/Gambrinus/Mythos beer into the ground in your memory.

And I hope that if there is a heaven there’ll be a never ending happy hour and a special section for backpackers to gather, enjoy a drink and talk about where they’ve been and where they’re going next. I’m pretty sure everyone on my list would get along pretty well (except for Classic Scott and Dingus, who are polar opposites).

I’ll bring the cards, fellas. I’ll bring the cards.

 

ROCK OUT WITH YOUR COCK OUT

If you’re under the age of 30 you’ve probably played, at some point or another, a drinking game called “Never Have I Ever.” The rules are simple: you sit in a room with a bunch of other people and, when your turn comes, you tell everyone about one thing you’ve never done. If anyone else in the room has done the thing in question, they drink. Anyone who has played this a few times has compiled a mental list of things they haven’t done that will inevitably force other people to drink, embarrassing them and causing a ruckus in the process, if possible (eg. “Never have I ever done anal.”).

When I run out of things to say, I always have a backup that will make a good portion of the room drink: “Never have I ever gone skinny dipping.” While I revel in making others drink, I’m also secretly a bit jealous. And curious. I mean, how does skinny dipping even happen? I can think of a few necessary ingredients: intense drunkenness; warm-ish weather (or indoor pool); walking access to a body of water; free-spirited company.

And no offense to my regular, non-transient friends, but even if all of them were impulsive, easygoing nudists, which they are not, would I really want to see them naked? I mean, sorry, but I have no desire to see your private parts flailing all over the place. No good could come of that. At best, there’d be brief awkwardness in the morning. At worst, we’d completely lose respect for each other and the friendship would be destroyed. Sweet.

Besides, I think we have reached a level of confidence where, if someone wants to see my lovely lady lumps, all they have to do is ask. I’ll drop trow on the spot and we’ll save ourselves a lot of foreplay.

By now, you probably have guess where this narration is going. Yes, I went skinny dipping. In the Mediterranean. At the Barcelona beach. At 3 a.m. With four 22-year-old British girls. And I don’t mind spoiling the ending because what interests me most of this experience, in retrospect, is not so much the nude dipping, but the series of events that led to it. Specifically, the way in which a tiny, seemingly irrelevant decision or twist of fate can place you inside an energy path that, if you lower your guard and follow through to the end, will take you straight to Awesomeville, population = you (and four naked co-eds).

This happened the night before I left for Casablanca, so I was banking on an uneventful night to recharge my batteries in preparation for my upcoming adventure. Chotchsky and I were both exhausted, as per usual. It is impossible to get more than four or five hours of extremely light, constantly interrupted sleep per night at Kabul. People drink in the room until about 1:45 a.m., and then start trickling back in from the clubs at 3 or 4 a.m. To top it off, check-out is at 11 a.m., so the loud packing and rustling around starts as early as 9.

Point being, the lack of sleep makes you feel like you’re permanently hung over. If you add walking all day and drinking all night to that, it’s a recipe for disaster. This is why, once in a while, those of us in our mid-20s need to take a night off.

“You look like shit, man,” I had said to Chotchsky that very night after we came back from tapas and sangria.

“Ha, thanks,” he said. “Why?”

“Your eyes. They’re all…glassy, and red.”

We tried to relax at the bar for a bit, but the Michael Jackson was unreasonably loud, so we relocated to our room. We opened the door and, surprise! A group of 30 or so people were sprawled out all over the floor playing Kings, discarded liquor bottles all over the place. Chotchsky and I laughed and made our way to our bunk bed, where we tried to read our books for a while, but it was difficult with all the screaming.

The partiers invited us to join in. We refused politely. The game got rowdier. They invited us to join in again. Chotchsky stayed strong. My resolve was weakening.

“Cmoooooon…” they said.

“OK, fill me up!” I said.

After a few minutes of drinking, I became permanently attached to this pack of people and we unanimously decided to head out to something called the Pirate Bar. What makes it a pirate bar, outside of all the drunken hostel kids screaming “yarrrr!”, is a handful of themed decorations and sad waiters in sad costumes with handkerchiefs on their heads.

We took over a long table and each had a couple of beers. Then 1:45 a.m., aka the nightclub hour, rolled around, and we all paid our debts at the bar and gathered outside. Everyone else was heading to some club called the Catwalk; I was ready to walk home to my STD incubator of a bed. But as fate would have it, I lingered just a moment too long, and ended up standing next to a guy named Justin as everyone else hopped on cabs. Justin, an American who also happened to be staying in our room, was one of two Alpha Males in the hostel at that time, the other being a kid we’ve nicknamed High-Energy Guy because he’s always hopping around hyperactively, laughing loudly and flailing his arms and generally being a live wire. He’s a cool guy, as is Justin.

We were about to head back when four hostel girls stumbled across the sidewalk in our direction. Justin, of course, was already acquainted with them. (I was too, indirectly, as they had been the ones whose frisbee got peed on, but we hadn’t exchanged names – they had only seen me laughing uncontrollably in my underwear). The girls wanted to have the full Pirate Bar experience, so back in we went. We had rum shots and beer and got very close to getting kicked out for singing drinking songs and being altogether too rowdy.

“Imagine if we got kicked out of the pirate bar for being too piratey,” I told Justin. “That’d be epic.”

When the pirate bar shut down we headed to a shot bar, the same one I had dominated along with Chotchsky during our very first pub crawl in Barcelona, which seemed like an eternity ago. The girls ordered a round, and once again, I found myself drinking something that was on fire, with melting cream and M&M’s on top. After that, because the bar was closing, we got two free rounds, for (I can only assume) being awesome.

Then the bar shut down and we were back on the sidewalk.

“Let’s go to the beach!” screamed the girls in unison.

Uh-oh.

It was a 10 minute walk away. We all ran onto the sand, tearing off our clothes along the way and wading into the Mediterranean. It was cold, but not unbearable. We floated around for a while. Justin latched on to one of the girls and proceeded to perform some admirable water humping. I was left with the other female participants.

In case you were wondering, I didn’t as much as kiss any of these girls. My heart wasn’t into it (the question of why I won’t hook up with drunken strangers, even in Europe, has a long-ish and convoluted answer that involves women on the American continent messing with my head). It was still a shitload of fun.

We trudged back to the hostel, dripping wet, and got some delicious kebabs on the way. We ate them on the Plaza Real fountain. And then we all passed out in our beds, except for Justin who, I’m pretty sure, banged the hell out out of that girl.

What made this experience even more awesome: When Chotchsky shook me awake in the morning to check out, everyone else was already gone. It was as if the skinny-dipping fairy had tapped her wand on my head and said, go ahead, go wild, don’t worry about the consequences.

It’s the same for all the best things in life. They are unplanned and impossible to control. They can’t be gradually worked toward. They can’t be purchased. And they hinge on a brief moment or tiny decision that sets off a whole chain of events.

It hasn’t been easy for me to come to terms with this reality. I’ve been raised to believe in hard work and baby steps and logic and reason and long-term goals. And I’m not condemning this philosophy.

But. Life is far more fun on this side of the aisle.

Mo Rocca, part deux

Can a man die of bedbug bites? That is a question I will soon know the answer to, as I was bit by an army of bugs in my sleep last night. My arms, legs and the sides of my stomach are covered in itchy bumps.

At first I thought, hey, maybe I’m just allergic to Morocco. But the affected areas were too specific. The parts of my body that were directly on the mattress were completely untouched.

I was woken up that morning, as usual, by the crag-faced cleaning lady, who must be a million years old and speaks only Arabic and never takes no for an answer. You see, this woman is so anxious to clean my room that she’ll unlock the door herself and barge in at 8 a.m. When she sees me move around in bed, she’ll make a hasty retreat. Then she’ll try again at 9. And at 10. And so forth. Sadly, because I do not speak her language, I can’t explain to her that I’m catching up on a month’s worth of sleep and that she should lay the fuck off.

I took my favorite elevator down to the lobby for a tasty breakfast: freshly squeezed orange juice, bread with butter and a jam-covered croissant. Meanwhile, I checked the results of the Argentine midterm elections on what appears to be the only computer in town. And then I thought, you’re eating a croissant in Morocco. What the fuck do you care about Argentine midterm elections?

Touche, brain.

So I walked out of the hotel into the hot sun and the chaotic streets, past the Cafe Aux Deux Magots, which must mean something normal in French but makes me think of maggots every time I see the sign. I had my bottle of Sidi Ali mineral water on me, my favorite brand, mostly because their slogan is “Sidi Ali: 30 Years Of Minerality.”

The cafes, where I would normally park my ass when faced with an unknown city, are filled with swarthy (thanks Carly) men, all on their own, all aged 30 to 60ish, all staring straight forward and sipping tea all day. No one reads or writes or even glances at the TV, unless there’s a soccer game on. Also, no one hoots and hollers at the women, which is what I’m used to in Latin American shitholes that resemble this one.

Women always walk around in pairs. When men are walking in pairs, they occasionally hold hands, which I find hilarious.

Some major streets are lined with palm trees, which is classy, while the rest of the streets are lined with horrendous new smells.

I’m starting to suspect that every landmark in Morocco is named after Mohammed V. So far, I’ve seen: a Mohammed V avenue, a park, a theater, the airport, a street and a boulevard. What the four previous Mohammeds did to get snubbed like this, I do not know.

Guess what the current king’s name is? Yep, Mohammed VI. And his stupid mug is plastered all over the city. It’s on all the currency. It’s in every nice store, framed as if it was high art. And even street peddlers carry his photo, smugly looking at me from inside gleaming frames, even if these people are selling, I dunno, 30 cent orange juice or soiled T-shirts.

Speaking of orange juice – the fruit here is insanely cheap and delicious. A fresh-squeezed glass of OJ can be found at every corner for a few cents, and I can personally vouch for the quality of plums and grapes from fruit stands, as long as you don’t mind the flies hovering over the fruit. Flies hover over everything here, really. You might as well give up on the concept of sanitation.

One more random note: Like everywhere else I’ve been on this trip, American culture has thoroughly permeated society. (One of my favorite moments in Sweden was inside a coffee shop where some terrible hip hop song was playing, and after hearing the refrain, Chotchsky goes “I’m GLAD all his homies are dead and gone.”) If you watch the Moroccan commercials, you realize that events that took place in the U.S. a few months of years ago are just happening here. For example, Pizza Hut is now selling pasta, and there’s an ad with a surprised cute kid going “pasta? Nem Pizza Hut?!” And Brian Austin Green is starring in some Terminator series spinoff. And the highlight of Monday night’s primetime television is Roger Moore’s “Live And Let Die”, with a gorgeous female counterpart who, in my opinion, could take the past ten Bond girls combined.

Back to the story. It was sunny outside, as usual. My first reaction was, meh, this weather isn’t so bad. But after a day of walking outside I started feeling weird, and then I noticed that all the locals choose to exist on the shaded side of the road, and understood why. It might not be deathly hot outside, but the sun is harsh. It’ll burn the hell out of you and leave you confused and disoriented, like a tabasco keg stand. If you sit on the ground and look around, you’ll notice the ripples in the air, as if you were sitting in a giant frying pan. Which you sort of are.

I managed to find the train station, where I hopped on a train to Rabat, Morocco’s capital. A round trip ticket was a mere six euros, but the biggest surprise was the trains themselves: sleek, fast, air conditioned, plenty of plush chairs for everyone. Something tells me that this must have been left behind by the French. Another interesting thing about this train is that a sign above certain seats reads “Seat reserved: disabled, pregnant women, old people, and war mutilees.” (I know that’s not a word, but apparently it is in French.) Isn’t that a little too specific? What if someone smashed your kneecaps during war but left your legs whole? Do you not get to sit?

Out of my window I saw: dirt roads, fields of dried-up grass and weeds, kids playing soccer barefoot, slums with satellite dishes all over, tents pitched next to the train tracks (whether for people or materials, I wasn’t able to tell), and vineyards, which means that Moroccan wine must exist somewhere, somehow.

I got off at the Rabat station (again, mapless) and prepared for another day of aimless wandering.
FLIRTING AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

An hour into my Rabat day I found a well-manicured park and sat in the shade. I wasn’t doing anything in particular, just resting my legs, when two young women came to a standstill a few feet from me. I heard whispering and giggling. I looked over in their direction, just to let them know I was aware of their presence and they better not try anything funny (a month’s worth of European tourist traps will get you thinking that way). One of them wore a head scarf and traditional garb; the other was headgear-less and wore jeans.

Well, whatever preconceptions I may have had regarding headscarves went right out the window two seconds later, because the jeans girl tee-heed and wandered off to a park bench while traditional girl attempted to start a conversation with me.

We went through the usual dance. She started in Arabic, I made a blank face with wide eyes and shrugged. She tried French, I explained, in perfect French, that my French is crap. “Spanish?” I asked. “Italiano?” she replied. Good enough. The rest of the conversation was a clumsy hybrid of French, Spanish and Italian.

First we established what I was doing here (“Tourisme,” I explained). Then how long I was staying (“Just a few hours.”). She volunteered to show me around. I told her maybe next time I’m in town. And then:

“You’re very beautiful,” she said to me in Italian.

“Thank you,” I said, smiling.

“Are you a Muslim?” she asked.

I chortled. “Nope!”

“Oh. So why do you have that beard?”

Again, I had to laugh. “Just because,” I told her.

(She is referring, of course, to my now full-fledged chinstrap, growing healthy and thick.)

Suddenly, it dawned on my why I hadn’t been getting the tourist treatment so far. People must have been assuming I was a Muslim, and leaving me the hell alone. I’m just tan enough to pass as a lighter-skinned local.

I started working on getting some info out of her. Her name was Latifa (and she had loads of fun making me pronounce her name and then teasing me for messing it up). She lived in Rabat, was studying Italian, and worked at the Finance Ministry. This made sense, as the park was a few blocks from all the administrative government buildings.

I gave her my e-mail address and told her she could write to me to practice her Spanish. She agreed, but only if I would learn Arabic from her. And she asked me if I used MSN Messenger, which I did, at some point in my life, so she gave me her screenname.

“Tonight, we chat,” she told me.

(I just nodded, because I don’t know how to say “sorry, I have a date with bedbugs” in French.)

“It was a pleasure,” I said, and shook her hand (if there’s one thing I retain from high school French, that’s stodgy, formal greetings and goodbyes).

“Yes, a pleasure,” she said.

I checked my pockets after we parted ways, just out of habit, but I was pretty sure this had been a perfectly innocent exchange.

Not only did I establish that I have mad game in Morocco, but I relaxed a little more around the locals. I talked to a waiter who decided I was such an open-minded guy that he wanted to invite me back for coffee, on him, in the afternoon. (Although it was a nice, non-sexual offer, I didn’t go back).

And I had an unnecessarily protracted conversation with three women at the bank when I went to exchange a few more euros into play money. I took me about five minutes to get a single point across and when, after I had my money, I left with a beautifully accented “au revoir!”, they went “oh! NOW he speaks French!”

I’m starting to believe there’s a universal, inversely proportional relationship between a country’s economic welfare and the friendliness of strangers. I feel like I’m back in Cuba.

ESCAPE FROM CASABLANCA

My exit strategy had been planned to the last detail. My flight back to Barcelona left Mohammed V at 2:30 p.m. I had looked at the train schedules ahead of time and picked the train leaving at 12:07 p.m., giving me an hour and a half to relax at the airport upon arrival. I knew precisely where the train station was, after my trip to Rabat. Just a 15 minute walk from Hotel Astrid. And I remembered seeing all the screens that said “Destination: Aeroport” last time I’d been at the station.

I had even prepaid my bill at the veritable Hotel Astrid the night before, just in case, and had slept reasonably well fully dressed, shirt buttoned all the way up, underwear over my shirt, belt buckled, and socks on my hands and feet, creating an impermeable anti-bedbug barrier. Except for my face where, if I had foreseen this problem, I would’ve brought one of those Mexican wrestler masks.

I woke up at 10:30 a.m., checked out by 11 and stopped by my favorite laiterie for one last dose of orange juice. Hydrated and happy, I made my way to the train station.

When I got there, I looked up at the departures screen. “Weird,” I thought. “There’s no 12:07.”

But there WAS a 12:30 to the airport, and that would do fine. To kill some time I crossed the road, avoiding all the tiny red Petit Taxis zooming by, and got myself an egg-and-cheese panini and a Sidi Ali (here’s to 30 more years of minerality!).

The guy at the ticket booth had warned me that I’d have to change trains at the first station. Fine by me, I thought, relatively unconcerned.

The train left on time and I got off at the first stop. The airport train, a sign said, would arrive at 1. That’s when I started to worry.

When the second train finally took off toward the airport it did so in the opposite direction it had come (that is, right back to Casablanca). Double uh-oh. And at 1:15 p.m. it pulled into, you guessed it, Casablanca’s OTHER train station!

Desperate, I asked a train official what time we were arriving at the airport and he looked at his watch and said “2 p.m.”

That was it. No chance to make my flight.

Now, a sane person recognizes that this situation is beyond their control and tries to calm down, sit back and hope for a miracle. I am not that kind of person. I kept scanning the landscape for any indicator of proximity to the airport; I fidgeted nervously; I began planning out alternate scenarios in my head. Let’s see. Jet4You’s flights to Barcelona leave every three days, so that’d be out of the question. Maybe another company would take me, but that’d be expensive and I was almost out of euros. The best plan I could draft was the following: a bus or a train to Tangier, a ferry over the water into southern Spain, and I’d have to take it from there. I suppose that’d be making the best of this calamity.

The train pulled into the airport at exactly 2 p.m. I burst through the doors and up the escalator, shoving frail women in headscarves out of my path. I ran as hard and fast as I could. I made it to the check-in desk at 2:05, breathless, and tried to hand over my passport to the airline employee.

“Barcelona?” said the check-in lady. “Impossible, we’ve closed.”

She looked to her right at another employee and he did the international arm wave for “no more, you’re done, that’s it.”

Time for a last-ditch plea. I put my hands together in prayer form and begged “please, please.”

This is where my Moroccan sex appeal came into play, I think. I could see her getting confused.

“Do you have any bags?” she asked.

“No bags, just carry on,” I said.

She looked over at the other guy again. “No bags,” she told him.

“Fine,” he said. “But no guarantees.”

She pulled out my boarding pass and waved me away.

“Run, run!” she said.

You don’t have to tell me twice, lady. I sprinted to the passport control area in record time and barged into the window for diplomatic use only (after all, I really have been very diplomatic during my stay here, particularly with the employees of Hotel Astrid).

The migrations official pointed me to a form I was supposed to fill out. I pulled out my pen and scribbled my way through it. It was barely legible. The man decided he’d slowly re-do the whole thing in his own handwriting. Thanks, guy.

Then came security. The line was mercifully empty. I shoved my bag into the x-ray scanner and, just when I thought I was home free, I got stopped by a police officer. He opened my bag and proceeded to withdraw every single item inside. He went through the pockets of my jeans and my shorts. He pulled out my notebook, my pen, my books.

“My flight,” I told him, pointing like a madman to my boarding pass.

“One minute,” is all he said, every time.

We went through this charade for what felt like a good five minutes.

“Can I help you find something?” I said, frustrated.

“One minute,” he answered, calling over more officers.

Well, whatever it was he was looking for (a bribe?), we’ll never know, because eventually he gave up and I stuffed all my belongings back into the bag and made a beeline for the gate.

I must’ve looked like a sweaty mess because the airline employee standing at the gate immediately tried to calm me down.

“You’re still good,” she said.

I was the last person to get on that plane.

See you in hell, Morocco.

Mo Rocca, part une

 

As a regular flyer into a Third World country, I can tell you this much: As soon as you set foot on the plane, you know exactly what’s coming to you. It happened to Chotchsky when he came to visit me in Argentina. While the plane was still motionless at JFK, all the Argentines on board kept milling about the aisles until the flight attendants had to threaten everyone with a hefty delay unless they sat the hell down and strapped themselves in.

Same deal for this Morocco-bound flight from Barcelona. Not that I expected a luxury flight from a Moroccan carrier named Jet4You.com, which sounds like the mere act of booking a ticket will get you infected with spyware. I looked around inside the plane: Crying babies all over, kids scurrying up and down the aisles, grown men jockeying for overhead bin space, women sitting quietly in their head scarves, everyone wearing white. This is where I first started to get self-conscious. I was one of two Caucasians aboard, and even worse, Chotchsky wasn’t around to make me look tan and exotic by contrast.

(He had decided to stay put in Barcelona for some extra beach and rest.)

The two-hour flight took me over southern Spain and the Strait of Gibraltar into Casablanca’s airport, which is named Mohammed V. Say it with me. Mohammed V. That’s a badass name. But that’s about where the awesomeness ends. Mohammed V is located half an hour from downtown Casablanca and, therefore, my hotel. Because we landed after midnight and the train wasn’t running anymore, I was forced to take an extremely expensive cab: 300 dinars, which sounds like funny play money but is actually worth about 28 euros.

The taxi was a cream-colored Mercedes, probably an early-90s edition, with a nice purr to the engine but an ancient dashboard. The driver did his best to strike up conversation. He tried French, and that lasted all of one minute. We did better in broken Italian, but eventually we both gave up and he switched on the radio. On came a man singing a capella, uninterrupted, in a style of music that, given my ignorance, I can only characterize as religious and filled with weird throat tricks and wobbly intonation.

Meanwhile, we were cruising down a dark two-lane highway, directly above the yellow line. It felt surreal. Apparently, like Argentina, traffic laws are purposely disregarded here. Even worse, it appears you’re a huge loser unless half of your vehicle is on the opposing lane, which is mildly terrifying.

The first word that comes to mind when you look out the window is “precarious.” Everything’s ramshackle and stained, the paint peeling, the laundry drying in the open air. Even at night, you can feel it right away. Your mind registers it and switches to ready-for-anything mode.

Around 2 a.m. I got dropped off at the alley that contained my hotel, Hotel Astrid, of which I will have plenty to say later on. The lights in the lobby were off and the glass doors in front were locked. Fuck, I thought to myself. Out of the corner of my eye I kept check on a suspicious group of men in the corner.

I desperately rapped on the glass door and, praised be Allah, a disgruntled old guy made his way over.

“What do you want?” he asked in French, cracking the door open.

(Uh, what do you THINK I want.)

“Check-in,” I said, pointing to my bag.

He considered this for a few seconds.

“It’s 2 a.m.!” he complained.

(No shit, Sherlock.)

“I have reservation,” I countered.

He sighed and let me in. He took my passport, gave me the key to room 18, and shooed me away.

“Third floor,” he said.

I took the elevator. It was no normal elevator. Most elevators have two doors – one on the outside, one on the inside. This one lacked an inside door, so you could see the walls and doors rushing past you, inches from your nose.

I collapsed into bed, sleeping alone for the first time in a month.

 

DAY ONE

Casablanca is utterly unfit for tourism. Even though I like that idea on paper, I don’t even know where to start exploring this city. No maps, no tour guides, no Lonely Planet, no helpful hotel employees, and, to top it off, very little English – just Arabic and French.

“Any good, cheap places to eat?” I asked the desk clerk.

“Everywhere,” he said, making a sweeping gesture with his hand. Very useful.

So off I went into the streets. I wore flip flops, because it’s the closest thing I have to the locally favored sandals. And I put on my Manu Chao T-shirt, because not only is Manu Chao French, but the shirt is red with a yellow star in the middle and it slightly resembles the Moroccan flag. I was banking on Moroccans assuming I’m a fan of their country.

After a few blocks I spotted a convenience store and braced for my first transaction: purchasing fruit juice. I went in, grabbed a small carton of peach juice and took it to the counter. The attendant mumbled the price in French.

“Forty?” I asked.

“[Unintelligible French response]”

“Forty? No, thanks.”

[Guy laughs]

“Ohhhh, FOUR. OK.”

Embarrassing, but I got the job done. I never claimed my French was anything but disastrous.

Now it was time to address my hunger pangs. I ducked into a kebab place and ordered the most familiar dish from the menu board: a cheeseburger with fries (which, at two euros, seemed nicely priced). The burger was generally normal, except for a layer of transparent mushy stuff which I hope was onions but am not so sure. Fries were good, but the ketchup taste very strange, as if they had overdone it with the sugar. The food sat in my stomach like a rock for a few hours afterward. I’m guessing there’ll be an extensive acclimation period before I can digest this crap like everyone else does.

The roads are trash strewn and somewhat dingy but not that much unlike any major South American city. What is different, though, is the drivers’ complete and extreme disregard for pedestrians. There are a total of zero walk signs in Casablanca. Judging by what the locals do, it appears you’re supposed to jump out into oncoming traffic when cars are going slow enough to brake or, at least, cause non-life-threatening injuries. Every major intersection feels like a perverted game of Frogger. My solution has been, obviously, to shadow a local across the road. It might look weird, but I trust that these people are adept at not getting killed.

I wandered into the funky Old Medina, a walled-off compound of crumbling buildings and narrow, nameless passageways. The Medina is completely overrun with street peddlers and is a counterfeit-goods center only comparable to Piraeus plaza in Athens or Retiro in Buenos Aires. I wouldn’t pull my camera out here if my life depended on it.

In case I wasn’t clear enough earlier: there are no other white people here. Or tourists. I feel like people don’t know how what to make of me. On the bright side, all the tourist-swindling industries that plague Europe haven’t been fully developed here. I haven’t seen any prostitutes or aggressively friendly locals looking to make some money.

That night I watched the U.S.-Brazil soccer game at a restaurant with a bunch of Moroccan men. Thankfully, soccer is the universal language, and we all expressed similar emotions and outrage at similar times.

At every turn, I thank my lucky stars that I was raised in Buenos Aires. I knew all the training would come in handy someday.

A pit stop in Barcelona

I had never slept like that before, folded onto myself like a ham and cheese omelet, slumped over on an airport chair, elbows on my knees and forehead on my forearms. THAT’S how tired I was right before flying back to Barcelona.

Not just tired. Hungry, too. And the only thing to eat at the Athens airport was McDonald’s. I stepped up to the counter and told myself that if I ordered something not available in the U.S. or Argentina, that’d at least provide a measure of redemption. So I got the McFarm. It looked like a double cheeseburger in the picture. Turns out, it’s two greasy sausage patties crammed inside a bun. Thanks a lot, Greece, for the worst McDonald’s experience of my life.

The next day or two were spent in recovery, in a state of on-and-off hibernation, like when your computer goes into sleep mode. We’d take naps at random times during the day and wandered around in a daze. It wasn’t until our second full day back in Barcelona that strange and wonderful things started happening around us once again.

 

THE ELEPHANT MAN

We were walking toward the beach, towels draped over our shoulders, when Chotchsky froze in his tracks.

“Look at THAT guy,” he said.

“Where?” I said, scanning the sidewalk.

“Behind us.”

“What, that old guy?” I asked. “He’s just getting water…in his underwear…his tattooed underwear?”

Yep. This old man was wandering around buck naked, wearing nothing but white knee-high socks and an underwear tattoo. I could see his wrinkly butt from where I stood.

“Wait. Was his penis tattooed too?” I asked Chotchsky.

“I didn’t get to see,” he said.

Well, that was that. We talked for a while about how painful it must be to get your penis tattooed, assuming that was what had happened, and laughed about it some more and went on our way.

About a week later (I went to Morocco and back during this period of time) we saw him again, praise the Lord. We were coming up the subway stairs and there was his rear again, on La Rambla. We were elated. First item of business: get a clear photo.

Done. Then, of course, there was the question of the front. We argued like schoolgirls about who should run up ahead of him and take a look. Neither of us wanted to stare at shriveled old-man penis, but someone had to take one for the team.

Thankfully, other tourists solved this problem for us. Tattooed underwear guy noticed some camera flashes going off to his side and turned around and posed, giving us full view of his genitalia.

He was enormous. Elephantiasic. His baby arm was swinging in the wind, his face denoting complete boredom or nonchalance, as in, “why are you people taking photos of me? Don’t you have anything better to do?”

Then he turned around and continued on his way.

“Oh my God,” I said.

“Yeah,” agreed Chotchsky.

“Did you see if it was tattooed?” I asked. “I had to turn away.”

“Me too.”

“Crap. I’ll tell you one thing, though. If I had a dick like that, I’d walk around naked, too.”

Conclusion: We’ll never know the truth.

What we do know, however, is that this man is something of a local celebrity. We were talking to our Canadian friend Mark over a happy-hour game of pool at the hostel, trying to describe this guy, and Mark’s face lit up right away.

“You mean the Elephant Man?” he said. “Hell yeah I’ve seen him!”

 

FUN IN THE SUN

The beaches in Barcelona are overrun with Pakistani vendors. It’s like a plague. They offer: beverages (“Cervezabeeraguacola! Cervezabeeraguacola!”), henna tattoos (“Henna henna! Henna Henna!”), knockoff sunglasses (“Glasses my friend! Gafas my friend!”), drugs (“You want hashish? You want marijuana?”), samosas (“Samosas!”) and my personal favorite, coconut slices. Not because of the taste, which is bland, but because of the call (“Daru-daru-daru-daru!”), which sounds like something out of Mork and Mindy.

They’ll tell you that beer is 2 euros and water is 1.50, but don’t believe them. With a little wagering, you can get them down to 1.50 and 1, respectively. Or get your own six-pack at the supermarket that’s a two-minute walk away.

As the self-appointed supervisor of fiscal responsibility, I volunteered to get up and bring a six-pack of Estrella. When I got back, Chotchsky was stretched out face-down on his towel.

“Cerveza beer agua cola!” I said as I walked over.

No reaction.

“Cerveza beer agua cola!” I yelled again, in his face, this time plopping the six-pack by his side.

“NO, THANKS!” he answered angrily.

When he sensed I wasn’t leaving, he looked up.

“Oh, it was you. I thought you sounded different from the other guys.”

Accompanying us that day at the beach was Ben a.k.a. Classic Dingus, of Berlin fame. Coincidentally, he was also staying at Kabul, and we overlapped for one night.

Aside from being great company, Classic Dingus is also very willing to enter our completely inane discussions, leading to gems like this one, from the time when I was considering getting a piercing.

“If you get a piercing with me, I’ll do it,” I said to Chotchsky.

“I’ll get a piercing if you get a Prince Albert,” he replied.

“I’ll get a Prince Albert if YOU get a Prince Albert,” I said, raising the stakes.

“I’ll get a Prince Albert if Ben gets a Prince Albert,” he countered.

We both turned to stare at Classic Dingus.

“Um, no,” he said, very seriously. “I don’t want to be setting off the metal detector every time I fly.”

That was the end of the great, short-lived Prince Albert Experiment.

 

MJ IS NO MORE

Where were you when you found out Michael Jackson was dead?

Were were at our Barcelona hostel, Kabul, fresh off a pre-club nap. It was 1:45 a.m. and we were gathering at the bar to head out to Razzmatazz, one of the more popular local hotspots. I walked downstairs and Chotchsky was waiting by the plasma screen.

“Look,” he said, gesturing toward the TV.

The bottom of the screen said: "Michael Jackson, dead at 50.”

My first instinct was to think that this was a prank by Chotchsky. Very funny. Then again, how’d he get inside the TV? No, that was logistically impossible. Maybe it’s April Fool’s Day? In June?

And then it finally hit me.

“Holy shit,” I said, eloquently. “Holy shit.”

“Prepare for weeks of nonstop MJ coverage,” I added.

I tried to grasp the magnitude of the moment. I couldn’t.

So I just forgot about it and went clubbing.

 

THE SERIAL PISSER

There are many ways to wake up in the morning when you are sharing a room with twelve people. The best, by far, is when something so outrageous happens that it completely upsets the natural balance of the  room and everyone’s so flabbergasted and loud that sleep becomes impossible.

Case in point: The Great Frisbee Incident. The day before the Great Frisbee Incident, we had entered our room and found two extra mattresses on the floor. Great, we thought. More people. One of the bodies that was to sleep on the mattress was a pale, slim American kid with glasses, most certainly still college-aged. His mattress had been carefully placed at the far end of the room, amid two bunk beds that were currently taken by four British girls.

That night was the Razzmatazz night. We had some drinks, nothing out of the ordinary.

I woke up to intense laughter the next morning around 10 a.m. Still in my boxers, I slouched to my locker, which was at the end of the room, where all the commotion was coming from.

Turns out, the skinny kid sleeping on the floor had awoken in the wee hours of the morning and urinated into the four British girls’ frisbee. No joke. There it was. A red frisbee, brimming with pee. I started convulsing with laughter along with everyone else. People were sitting up in their beds, cracking up.

That’s when the skinny kid awoke – the four girls laughing down at him, the rest of the room abuzz with the story.

He wasn’t happy.

“Every fucking time!” he yelled.

We all lost it. No one was going back to sleep after that one.

The culprit picked up the sloshing frisbee and carried it out to the bathroom for cleansing, decorating our floor with drops of urine along the way.

Man, I love this hostel.

Facial hair challenge

Now seems as good a time as any to mention our special facial hair challenge. You know the drill: backpacker goes to Europe, backpacker doesn’t shave for weeks, backpacker returns with a deep tan and a beard that would make Abe Lincoln green with envy. (“No, I didn’t say Abe Lincoln, I said ‘Hey, Blinkin’!”)

However, both me and Chotchsky are, comment se dit, follicularly challenged of the face. We dared each other to stop shaving and, within two weeks, we looked like 15-year-olds who haven’t received their first Mach 3 in the mail yet.

Chotchsky looked like a second-rate Spanish conquistador: a wispy mustache and a sad excuse for a goatee, with absolutely no connection in between and nothing in the cheeks or sideburns area. Eventually, I allowed him to shave the lip curtain, leaving him with just the goatee for the rest of the trip. I am a merciful overlord.

I fared slightly better, but not by much. The sideburns grew in nicely, as did the goatee and mustache, but the cheek area was weak. After a few days I looked like I had glued clumps of pubes onto my lower jaw. Through subtle shaving and the encouragement of Chotchsky, by the time we left the Greek islands I was sporting an unmistakable chinstrap, paying homage to our frat brother Allegro who was in turn paying homage to ‘N Sync’s Joey Fatone.

I still haven’t determined whether Chotchsky really thinks the chinstrap is the best I can do under the circumstances or, more likely, he just wants me to look like an asshole for as long as possible.

A Berlin leftover

(This is what I did at the Berlin Jewish Museum’s kid section.)

Welcome to Paradise

[Okay, I’m done experimenting. Back to classic OOTF writing style for the remainder of the blog. Oh, and this is a long-ish post. Be prepared.]

ATHENS, Greece — “For a 3-euro-and-60-cent bus ride, they better give us complimentary gyros or something,” I said to Chotchsky as the airport shrunk in the distance.

“Don’t worry,” said Chotchsky. “I think any moment now some gyros will drop through the roof, like oxygen masks on a plane.”

The descent into Athens was windy. Our airplane got tossed around like a rag doll.

As soon as we stepped off the plane we understood how much of a pain in the ass it would be to deal with the Greek alphabet. Even in places where we didn’t know the language, like the Czech Republic or Sweden, we’d eventually learn to associate words with certain situations: “pozor” meant danger, “hiss” meant elevator. Not here. It’s all epsilons and sigmas and iotas.

“I wonder if fraternities and sororities here use normal letters,” Chotchsky said. “Like, instead of Sigma Phi Epsilon, they’re ABC.”

We’re staying at a fully-furnished apartment only steps from the Acropolis, out of sheer dumb luck. I booked two beds at the most popular hostel in town, but apparently the physical bed supply was short of the number of reservations, so we were directed to a separate apartment building – for the same price, of course, a meager 24 euros. It’s got it all: kitchen, balcony, bathroom, flatscreen TV.

“I wish we could stay here for the rest of our trip,” said Chotchsky after we had marked our territory by throwing our belongings all over the place.

“I wish I could stay here for the rest of my life,” I said.

For dinner, we walked to a Greek taverna. From our streetside table we watched a presentation projected onto the walls of the soon-to-open Acropolis museum. Meanwhile, I shoveled moussaka into my mouth. It tasted like a strange mix of pastry and beef but was nonetheless delightful.

On our walk back to the apartment I picked up a can of cigarette-shaped, chocolate-filled wafers, the same brand (Papadopoulos) that I remember eating at my grandma’s when I was a kid. It was a special treat back then, kept on a high shelf, far from my reach. Well, screw you, grandma. I just got a whole damn can for a buck forty.

We spent the following day exploring the ancient Acropolis, although affixing the word “ancient” to any Greek attraction seems superfluous. The Acropolis, in case you haven’t been, is basically a grassy mountain, littered with slabs of stone and eroded columns, with the fabled Parthenon conveniently perched at the very top.

“Whoever lived here last is probably not getting their security deposit back any time soon,” I said to Chotchsky upon surveying the ruins.

Most of the columns remaining seem precariously balanced, with segmented portions stacked awkwardly on top of each other.

“Jenga!” said Chotchsky.

Athens is a relatively low city. From the top of the Acropolis you can see an expanse of white buildings in every direction, limited by the Aegean on one side and mountains on the other.

I told Chotchsky, quite dweebily, that the view reminded me of Sim City.

For lunch, we grabbed one of those ubiquitous gyros, and finally established the correct pronunciation of that word: it sounds like “hero”, people. This question had been nagging us for years.

In the late afternoon, we hopped on a massive ferry to Paros, one of the Cyclades islands (a.k.a. the islands where young people get loaded on ouzo and then pass out at the beach or at the club, depending on the time of day).

As we waited for the ferry to depart, I tried to explain to Chotchsky that, as I had learned from reading DFW, the Greeks are thought to be some of the world’s best navigators and are currently in charge of most major cruises leaving from Fort Lauderdale. Chotchsky seemed skeptical.

The ship glided away from the city until it became a speck on the horizon. The glint of from the sun lit up the waves of the Aegean. You could barely make out cliffs and islands and slow-moving tankers enveloped in fog in the distance. The moment was ruined when a dude in a Lacoste shirt began puffing on a cigar right next to our table, quickly followed by Chotchsky unwrapping a cheeseburger in my face.

“Here’s my dilemma,” Chotchsky said. “Would an icy coffee drink or a hot coffee drink be more appetizing right now?”

Well, so much for inspiration. Having given up on writing, I returned to conversation with Chotchsky.

“I wonder who lives on that island,” he said, pointing to a far-off green dot.

“An oracle,” I said.

“Maybe.”

“I read in my book that most of these islands are uninhabited,” I said.

“We should move to one of them.”

“We’d have no food,” I told him. “I’d have to grill you alive.”

“We could plant an olive tree,” he ventured.

“Man can’t live on olives alone.”

“He can, if he has to,” Chotchsky sentenced, and got up to go get a muffin.

Hurricane-strength winds forced us down into the bowels of the boat, where the new Indiana Jones flick was playing on the monitors.

I made a resolution: One more unintelligible announcement in Greek or one more violent ship roll and I’d find the captain and shove a hunk of feta cheese up his ass.

Five hours later, we docked. We were swarmed by hotel employees as soon as we set foot on the ramp. Thankfully, their desperation worked to our advantage, as we landed a room at something called Hotel Francisko for a little more than 15 euros apiece. (Francisco? What is this, Mexico?)

The next day, our first full day on Paros, was indubitably one the trip’s highlights, and even more than that – I’d call it one of my life’s greatest moments. In a stroke of genius, we rented ATVs and motored around the island. We sped up and down winding mountain roads, past blurry fields of green, past scraggly goats and blue-domed Greek orthodox churches, through beaches, eventually settling into sheltered patch of sand and rocks until the sun went down. This is one of those things that you have to experience for yourself, but please, put it high on your list: the wind in your face, the blazing sun, and the best part, barely any tourists in sight.

We had the ATVs for 24 hours, so we tried to squeeze as much juice out of them as possible. We rode to the post office, then to find an ATM, then to the main town square, where we parked our vehicles and I ate some lamb on a skewer for dinner. Had we not been exhausted, we would also have ridden our ATVs to the door of one of the nightclubs, but alas.

A sidenote re: Greek television. Not only is it terrible, but there is only one English-language channel with, for some reason, the NBC peacock logo on it, even though it’s completely unaffiliated with said network. We call it Greek NBC, or, if we’re feeling less generous, FNBC (the F stands for fake). On FNBC the past two nights: Sex and the City and Batman Begins.

While we’re off-track: We purchased a suntan lotion named Piz Buin. It doesn’t sound very enticing, but it gets the job done.

And finally: The Greek subways are plastered with posters for the latest Sandra Bullock/Ryan Reynolds vehicle, which makes the subway car seem to be filled with bland white people until it slows down and you realize it’s actually empty.

In the morning, we checked out of our Mexican hotel and bought some Greek yoghurt (do I really need to keep adding the word Greek here?) at the grocery store for breakfast. We boarded yet another giant ferry liner to the island of Santorini, of which I knew little other than that it has great views and that it’s economy is entirely tourist-based, and Chotchsky knew even less about it than I did.

The soundtrack on the boat consisted entirely of young children screaming incessantly, which we have gotten used to in the past three weeks of travel. We just tune it out.

“We should start solving all disputes like toddlers,” I told Chotchsky. “It’d be way healthier.”

“What, screaming?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Every time you’re frustrated or annoyed, you do this: [high-pitched shriek], until the problem goes away.”

The water here is so blue I don’t even know how to describe it other than that when I first saw it I told Chotchsky that it was postcard blue, i.e. that translucent aqua color you see in postcards and Caribbean resort pamphlets. Also, interestingly, the blue is patchy and sometimes emeraldy, depending on the position of the sun, the composition of the ocean floor, etc.

And now for our handy advice section for the day: If you’re ever on a giant Greek cruiser, don’t sit at one of those outdoor cafe tables right next to the railing, smugly thinking you snagged the best seat in the house. The boat will start swaying and you’ll get sprayed and the sun will shine down relentlessly on the top of your head and the wind will mess up your hair and freeze your face. When you realize all this and head inside the boat in search of a seat, shazzam – they’ll all be taken by savvy Greeks.

And also: all these Greek islands are not as close together as it seems on the map. The ferry from Paros to Santorini takes more than three hours. Plan accordingly.

I started to get hunger pangs after two hours on the boat, but the food offerings, limited to a fast food franchise named Goody’s, were meager, overpriced, precooked and lukewarm.

“There is nothing on this boat that I want to eat,” I said to Chotchsky.

“Just get a freddoccino,” he suggested.

“I don’t drink things that end in ‘ccino’,” I said.

He paused and thought for a few seconds.

“I’m going to try and prove you wrong,” he said.

“Have fun with that.”

“Fetuccini Alfredo?”

“I don’t drink fettuccini.”

Mercifully, we pulled into the port of Santorini soon thereafter and found a room close to the beach for 12 euros per person. You heard right. This was the cheapest place we’d find during our entire journey, and it wasn’t even a hostel: It was a legitimate hotel, with a large room, a balcony and a pool.

The beach closest to us, Perissa, is composed entirely of black sand. To be more specific, minute black pebbles, round and smooth, similar to Nerds candy, and you have to resist the urge to grab a handful and taste it.

Pros of black sand: The sun doesn’t reflect off of it, so you don’t have to wear sunglasses. The pebbles don’t stick to your skin like sand does, so you don’t feel like country fried steak when you’re going home. And it’s fun to run the pebbles through your fingers.

Cons of black sand: Black absorbs heat, so it’s like walking on hot coals. The pebbles stab the bottoms of your feet, so it’s like adding shards of glass on top of that. And it seems like every pebble on the beach somehow manages to find its way into your crotch.

Advantage: white sand. (“Whites win! Again” –Eric Cartman)

For variety’s sake, however, black sand is pretty good. On your singeing hot walk from your towel to the water you will encounter: a sloping dropoff; cool water; and, in the shallow part, a smooth, stony surface that, according to my tour book, is solidified magma. Not to bore you with touristy details, but there is a large volcano, or caldera, at the center of the island that at some point erupted and wiped out a significant chunk of land mass. While trekking on the caldera I made a passing comment to Chotchsky referencing “Joe and the Volcano” but he had no idea what I was talking about.

We stuffed ourselves for dinner, as we always do: Meatballs and fries and rice and yoghurt with honey and complimentary doughy cinnamon balls covered in syrup. I’ve learned not to trust Greek food. Anything edible in this country has the same weird aftertaste, like licking a sweaty tube sock. You have to stick with the hard-to-mess-up classics.

Every morning on a Greek island is the same. Cloudless and blindingly sunny. I haven’t seen as much as a wisp of a cloud since we arrived. We’ll go out to our balcony, drink the juice or smoothies we bought at the market the day before, look up at the sky and go, “yep, it’s always sunny in Santorini.”

Regarding juice, the Greeks sell this stuff that I guess is the local equivalent of your run-of-the-mill Minute Maid fruit juice but is oh so much better. My favorite is nine-fruit juice, all natural, no corn syrup and costing only slightly more than water. It appears that Coca Cola and Pepsi have snapped up all the local juice brands here, so here’s hoping that they bring this heavenly nectar stateside. I suspect the juice is the only thing keeping me from catching Chotchsky’s Prague disease.

This is what my diet has devolved into: Toblerone and chocolate wafers in the morning; stuffed crepes for lunch; a mountain of meat, rice, fries, yoghurt and honey for dinner, all punctuated by numerous fruit juice breaks. I’m compensating for my frugal eating in the past few weeks, which has left me permanently hungry.

Outside our balcony is a bird whose call sounds like a high pitched “woot woot!”, and this always gets me in a party mood. To the right of the party bird is a field of dry weeds that’s fenced off with rusty barbed wire. In the field lives a lone horse. The saddest thing about this horse is that someone has tied its front and rear legs together at the ankle with a short rope, presumably to stop it from escaping, even though it really couldn’t get very far on this island (unless it boarded one of those big Blue Star ferries). While I feel bad for the horse, it helps us figure out where our hotel is, because painting every friggin building white with blue shutters may be good for tourism and morale, but not so great for finding your way around town.

There are two major landmarks close by that always let us know when we’re on the right track. First is a 24-hour bakery whose logo is a mustachioed man donning a chef’s hat and an apron. I have dubbed it the Tom Selleck bakery. Second is an Internet cafe called The Matrix, which immediately elicited a lawyerly comment from Chotchsky regarding copyright infringement. Internet time at the Matrix is a not-unreasonable 50 sub-euros per 15 minutes, with fast computers and the unflagging company of dweebs playing Warcraft or some other MMORPG.

What is unreasonable, however, is the sunshine. It is relentless. All sun, all the time, unwavering. The opposite of, say, Greek police, who like to get fat and hang around in groups of five, chatting on random street corners.

But let’s get back to the trip. On Sunday night in Santorini we decided it was high time we return to the realm of heavy drinking. Our first stop was an 80’s theme party at a bar, quite lame, but offering one-euro shots of ouzo. Ouzo, in case you live in a cave, is Greece’s hard alcohol of choice. It is transparent, like vodka, and it tastes like aniseed and licorice and vomit and every flavor you’ve ever hated boiled into one liquid. Chotchsky liked it.

Next stop was a karaoke bar where, as is traditional, we quickly established our awesomeness. Chotchsky kicked the night off and twice went back for more, belting out off-key tunes with an attitude, earning himself the Worst Singer award thanks to David Bowie and Rick Astley. As for me, I did a semi-proficient job tackling some 80’s classics (thanks, horribly limited karaoke menu) that got all the older, pudgier tourists at the bar all riled up. A big incentive to sing was the free shot of unknown liquor at each turn, which our American bartender later described as “Greek moonshine.”

It was supposed to be a chill night, but the hotel room was spinning by the time we finally got to bed.

The reason I’m spending time going over this night, which would normally get filed under the “just another night in Europe” category, is that it had some far-reaching consequences the next day. You see, we had booked a full-day excursion on a pirate ship, one of those wooden vessels that violently sways back and forth with the waves. To say this was an unpleasant experience doesn’t even begin to describe it: dehydration plus sun poisoning plus motion sickness plus hunger plus hangover. You get the picture.

We trekked all over the ashy volcano and bathed in muddy hot springs and ate seafood at the port and watched the sunset from the top of the island.

We passed on the opportunity to ride donkeys up the mountain because it seemed like too inhumane a practice (it was a really steep mountain). And it cost five euros. As a sign of appreciation, the entire herd of donkeys almost flattened us as they rampaged back down the mountain while we were still halfway up.

Oh and we met some nice girls from the University of Virginia who I promised to mention on here, so there you go, girls whose names I don’t remember. Bask in the glory that is my travel journal.

We got on the midnight boat back to Athens, thus saving us one night of accommodation but effectively leaving us homeless for the next two nights, with our flight back to Spain departing the following day at 2 a.m., which is all fun and games until you want to shower or drop a deuce. That’s where things get tricky.

(Unless you take our Australian acquaintance’s advice. She insists that “there’s a shower inside every can of deodorant.”)

Prague according to Hemingway

The following post will be written in the style of Ernest Hemingway. I found this appropriate for two reasons. Number one, I was finishing up “The Sun Also Rises” on the way to Prague. Number two, Hemingway’s most recurrent themes – drinking, women, Existentialism and ragging on Jews – seemed perfect for this segment of our journey. So without further ado…

They took a bus from Berlin to Prague. They ran to the back and claimed the last row. A foul smelling man sat in front of them.

“Can women get B.O.?” Futbol asked.

“Hmm,” said Chotchsky. “That’s a good question. I guess so.”

“I’ve never smelled one, personally,” Futbol said.

The German countryside was lined with enormous windmills. Two Brazilian backpackers near the back fell asleep almost immediately to the hum of the bus engine. Someone in the front lit a cigarette.

“I guess I don’t see any no-smoking signs,” Chotchsky said.

Futbol read Hemingway and chewed on gummi bears. Chotchsky passed out face down across the back row of seats. He had his headphones on and his sunglasses in his left hand. The sun filtered in through the red window curtains.

They stopped for a smoke break. There was a truck selling food out the back. Chotchsky bought a Mars bar and a piece of bread. He paid one euro.

The bus went through Dresden. The crumbling buildings and monuments looked like they were covered in soot. Church tops and metallic crosses were polished and gleaming.

The rows of trees out the window turned into barren fields. The windmills kept turning. The bus entered a long tunnel lit by yellow lamps. The sun had set by the time they emerged on the other side.

“What does the word ‘spry’ mean?” asked Chotchsky, now awake, from the seat behind.

“I’m not completely sure but I think it’s something like sprightly, filled with energy,” Futbol said. “Why?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Are you writing about me?”

“You are the opposite of sprightly,” Chotchsky said.

“Ten minutes,” said the driver, announcing a pit stop.

In the gas station bathroom, Chotchsky looked at the signs and announced that they must have reached the Czech Republic.

Futbol bought iced tea and a chicken nugget sandwich. He wasn’t carrying any Czech Crowns and was not familiar with the exchange rate. He handed over his credit card and attempted to communicate with the attendant, who spoke only Czech.

“They have high-definition security cameras!” yelled Chotchsky from the other end of the gas station.

“Will you stop distracting me?” Futbol screamed back. “I’m trying to conduct a complicated transaction here!”

They got back on. The bus weaved past dark factories, rivers and blocky apartment complexes.

“I’ll have you know that I wrote eight postcards on this trip,” Chotchsky said.

“So that’s like a postcard every half hour,” Futbol said.

“A good average,” Chotchsky replied.

They pulled into the deserted Prague bus station at midnight. They haggled with a cab driver. When they arrived at the Hostel Rosemary, everyone was already asleep.

In the morning they were homeless again. They found a streetside table at a cafe. Chotchsky searched the city for aspirin to calm his fever. He found none. After paying the waiter they went into the first hostel they saw and asked to take a look at the rooms. The receptionist led them upstairs. She kicked aside a pile of plastic bottles that were blocking the hallway. The room walls were a pale lime green. The mattresses were thin and worn. They took the room anyway.

Chotchsky drank aloe vera juice by the bottle. They took a nap. Outside, the Czech traffic roared.

At night they ate with two Americans, Andrew and Natalie. The restaurant was brimming with locals. There was a tuba player and an accordionist. The older Czechs clapped, sang and lifted their beaded mugs of pilsner in celebration.

After dinner, they all walked to a small jazz club at the bottom of a stone staircase. Chotchsky and Andrew ordered shots of absinthe. Natalie got wine with Coke. Futbol stayed loyal to the Gambrinus. Three aging musicians played old-timey Gershwin and Louis Armstrong tunes.

“What did you call those places where people gathered to drink during, like, the Prohibition?” Chotchsky asked.

“You mean a speakeasy?” Futbol said.

“Exactly,” Chotchsky said. “I feel like I’m in a speakeasy.”

The next day they took the tram up to Prague Castle. They listened to the atonal cathedral bells. They watched a string quintet in a concert hall. Prague was inundated with people. Tourists filled cafe tables, drinking beer all day. Beer was cheap and plentiful.

Chotchsky’s fever started to let up after 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Futbol scoured Prague’s bookstores for Murakami books. Tourists whizzed by on Segways near the old Jewish town.

“I think the wars of the future will be fought on Segways,” Futbol said.

“The wars of the future will be fought in space,” Chotchsky said. “On Segways.”

Futbol bought a limited-edition T-shirt at a local clothing store.

“I like the idea that I’ll be the only person in Argentina wearing this shirt,” Futbol said.

“I know you do,” Chotchsky replied sarcastically.

A pile of pamphlets had accumulated on a wooden table at the end of their eight-bed hostel room.

They said things like “Would you like 2 dance or just have drink? Come to Ultramarin music club and try some cocktail of our drink list.”

And “We offer many dishes of International cousine.”

That night, they sat at the hostel bar and ordered a pitcher of Gambrinus. They rolled dice with two American girls.

On their last day, they went to Vysehrad castle. Futbol sat on a brick ledge overlooking the city and the Moldau river. Church bells went off, playing the main theme of Smetana’s “The Moldau”. A light breeze blew inside the castle walls. They walked past the ancient graveyard to the gardens. They sprawled out on the lawn, arms crossed behind their heads, in the shadow of giant stone statues.

In the late afternoon, Futbol dozed off on a park bench while thinking about Toru Okada’s missing cat. That night they played asshole with three Canadians and a Swede. They drank their combined weight in beer.

The final morning brought fresh pineapple and scrambled eggs. They took the tram, then the subway, then the bus to the airport.

“I feel like dook,” Chotchsky said.

“Duke Ellington?” Futbol asked.

Them German folks

BERLIN, Germany — I suppose they were due for a day of painful reversals; a day where all the fun they had sowed and reaped came back with a vengeance in a whirlwind of misery. It’s only normal. It’s the universe’s way of balancing things out.

That day was a Tuesday in Berlin. Why a Tuesday and why in Berlin, no one knows. After all, Monday had been as epic as any day on their journey. Futbol and Chotchsky had taken a walking tour of the city, indulging in homemade German chocolate and tap-dancing over the bunker where Hitler breathed his very last anti-Semitic breath.

They had laughed at the walk/don’t walk man on traffic lights, which sports a hat in the formerly Soviet-controlled East but is hatless in the West. They had posed at the famous Checkpoint Charlie and snacked at Snackpoint Charlie. And they had listened to their hipster tour guide as he spouted gems like these:

“Historians debate whether Frederick the Great was gay. I think the evidence is pretty clear. He was never seen in public with his wife. He didn’t have any children. And he liked having sex with men.”

They also confirmed that David Hasselhoff is indeed huge in Germany, with several Hasselhoff tidbits on the tour and a ridiculous Hasselhoff shrine at the hostel bar. And, oh, there was a good amount of drinking involved, too. Chotchsky downed a 2-liter glass boot. They all went out on another pub crawl.

The cast of characters continued to grow, too. There was Classic Scott, so nicknamed because everything he did and said was so in-character that the only thing you could say about him was “yep, that’s classic Scott.” There was Ben, who became Classic Ben after Scott left town, and eventually ended up known as Classic Dingus, which is not quite as pleasant. (Classic Dingus would later resurface in Barcelona, a few weeks later, and it was nice to have someone not disappear completely out of their lives, if only temporarily.)

Other characters of note included the Brothers Puberty, so nicknamed by Futbol. The Brothers Puberty, two kids whose voice hadn’t changed yet, barged into the hostel room one day with their iPods and their speakers and behaved like teens who had run away from home, drinking like animals and puking out the room window. Their high-register, piercing voices made everyone feel like there were girls in the room.

There was a computer-science dweeb named Jordan, from America, who started talking about Linux and how he had disabled Javascript in order to use Facebook on his old laptop, and then followed it up with how he was planning to visit Dresden, but he tried to pronounce it the German way and it came out sounding like Dreez-din.

And the British karaoke wonder who belted out “My Humps” along with a female partner and had the whole bar in stitches with his moronic sounding “She’s got me speeen-ding.”

Last, but not least, the German laundry elf, a short man in a hat whose lips were smeared with either detergent or cocaine and who overenthusiastically helped Chotchsky, Futbol and Classic Dingus to navigate the German-language-only laundromat.

The food, thankfully, was cheap. Chotchsky became a regular at the kebab place across the road, with their 4 euro pizza and 2.50 kebab, which was essentially a handful of sliced meat buried under a mountain of cabbage and sauce and wrapped in thick pita bread. He also discovered some sort of Turkish potato dish around the block and went back so many times and received so many freebies that it seemed the owner was just about ready to give him his wife as a sign of appreciation. He topped his culinary adventure off with a large pig knuckle at a microbrewery, which may or may not be related to the uptick in swine flu in Europe.

With all that eating, there was obviously a need for defecation, and it hit Chotchsky at the worse moment, right outside the Brandenburg Gate.

“I’m going to try and see if they let me in the American Embassy,” he said to Futbol. “I need to take a dump.”

[Chotchsky walks over. The guards tell him to get lost.]

“They said it was closed.”

“But what if it’s an emergency?” Futbol wondered. “And it IS an emergency!”

“I’ll just go take a dump at Starbucks.”

Meanwhile, Chotchsky continued investing his free time in postcard-related activities.

“Stop talking about postcards,” Futbol told him as they walked down the sidewalk. “If we tallied up the time you spent on this trip talking about postcards, buying postcards, writing postcards and sending postcards, I bet it’d add up to a good 50 percent.”

“And that’s not counting the time you spent complaining about postcards,” Chotchsky said.

“Another, what, 10 percent?”

“Sounds about right.”

Futbol finds it oddly satisfying to provide completely wrong tourist information to Chotchsky. On the front of the Reichstag, the words “Dem Deutschen Volke” are engraved on stone. (That translates to “To the German people.”)

“What does that mean?” Chotchsky asks.

“It means ‘them German folks’,” Futbol replies. (He considers going with “them crazy German folks,” but that would be pushing it.)

By the time they leave the building, Chotchsky has become suspicious enough that he asks again, and Futbol comes out with the truth.

They traipse through museums and historic streets all over Berlin. And after making it through a harrowing exhibit on eugenics during the Nazi era, and walking past a whole museum dedicated to Hitler’s plans of world domination, Futbol reaches the following conclusion:

“You gotta give it to the Germans,” he says. “For a violent and warmongering country, they really have no problem airing out their dirty laundry.”

But back to the misery. Tuesday came hung over and bleary eyed. Overcast sky, bursts of rainfall, chilly. Breakfast was good, with two ocean-eyed Swedish girls who the pair promises to look up in Prague, their next stop, but everyone involved knows it won’t happen.

And after breakfast Futbol goes back to his room to find his iPod gone. Lifted from his bag. As the anger and frustration wash away, he considers the bright side: now he’ll get a forced vacation from the Internet.

They head out to the laundromat, having run out of clean clothes, and are assisted by the Laundry Elf. As they wait for the dryers to finish, Futbol heads out to buy another falafel sandwich. Like his sister Foolia, who once sampled and rated spaghetti with tomato sauce at a dozen restaurants during a coastal vacation, Futbol is moving through Europe one fried chickpea at a time.

As he’s eating at a sidewalk table outside the laundromat (Chotchsky enjoying one of his trademark Turkish potatoes), they hear a loud metallic crash. Futbol sees a hand go up into the air.

It was a woman on a bicycle, the bicycle now twisted on the pavement, the offending car speeding away. They run to her, and a small crowd of people gets the woman and the bike off the road. She was fine after she regained her bearings.

One of those days. Even Classic Dingus says he feels tired and doesn’t know why. And a zit on Futbol’s forehead has evolved into something akin to Balthazar Getty’s carbuncle on Lynch’s “Lost Highway”. Everything’s going south.

All you can do is grab a hot shower and hope that the universe has been satiated.

Par for the course

Stockholm: city of mystery…and enchantment. No, wait. Just mystery.

Chotchsky calls it Anytown, USA, for reasons that will soon be abundantly clear. Going from Barcelona to dreary, cloudy, rainy, snowy, rude Sweden has been, well, miserable. For every tiny pro there is an avalanche of cons. Futbol begins to understand the unreasonably high suicide rates.

Things start going south at the Barcelona airport, even before boarding the plane. Chotchsky is suckered into a conversation with a drugged up, dreadlocked Swedish punk musician, which sounds awesome on paper but was terrible to witness. They keep going in circles, the Swede girl completely out of it, to the point where Chotchsky stops playing nice.

“I hate flying,” the girl would say.

“You’ll learn to love it,” Chotchsky would answer.

Eventually, the whole thing gets so weird that Chotchsky is forced to end the conversation. “This conversation is making me uncomfortable,” he tells her, while Futbol stifles his laughter.

The best part of the conversation comes when she asks Chotchsky what he’s doing these days for a living.

“Well, I’m coaching a swim team…working at a law clinic…”

[A young child runs shrieking past their row of seats.]

“…listening to boys scream…”

[Futbol perks up and lets out a loud “hah!”]

“…um, that didn’t come out right.”

The flight is smooth, over snowy mountain ranges, with Futbol listening to Dylan’s “Girl From The North Country” and getting emotional for a few seconds. Before they know it, they’ve touched down in the middle of the Swedish countryside.

Suffice to say that the two most-used catchphrases during their brief stay in Stockholm will be “just another day in Stockholm!” and “that’s about par for the course.”

 

PRO: Quaint rural airport with welcoming committee.

CON: Two baggage-sniffing police dogs, one crotch-sniffing police dog.

 

PRO: Funny words on signs like “fart” and “sida” and “vag”.

CONS: Unintelligible signs, unhelpful people, everyone’s busy running around being shrill and socially awkward.

 

PRO: The quietest subway trains in the world.

CON: A single ride ticket is four fucking euros. And Chotchsky and Futbol are forced to each get three-day passes for 20 euros. Terrible.

 

PRO: Currency rhymes with boner.

CON: Will you adopt the euro already? And why is everything so ridiculously expensive?

 

PRO: Clean streets, completely deserted at night.

CON: No nightlife whatsoever. And no prostitutes.

 

PRO: The hostel shower has a free body wash dispenser.

CON: Not only are the showers arranged prison-style, but a Swedish guy walks in a minute after Futbol and is done about five minutes before him thanks to famous Swedish industriousness, making everyone else feel inadequate.

 

PRO: Socialist economy, supposedly, resulting in no poors.

CON: So why is Stockholm completely overrun with McDonald’s, Burger King and 7-11 franchises? If it looks like capitalism and smells like capitalism, it must be capitalism.

 

PRO: Toilets have two flush buttons! (Ostensibly, one for number one and one for number two.)

CON: They seem to do the exact same thing.

 

PRO: British pubs.

CON: Their burgers taste like hot dogs. Do their hot dogs taste like burgers?

 

PRO: Delicious food like meatballs, salmon, crepes.

CON: Couldn’t find Swedish Fish anywhere in Sweden, so the question of what they are called here still remains.

 

PRO: Reindeer –  it’s what’s for dinner.

CON: Santa’s pushing his own sleigh this year.

 

PRO: Ice bar.

CON: It’s cold (duh) and it costs 18 euros to get in. And if your glass, which is made of ice, cracks and your drink seeps out onto the bar, NO REFUND (as Chotchsky found out the hard way).

 

PRO: If you’re lucky, you might be in town for Swedish National Day!

CON: All the hostels will be booked, and the celebrations will consist of a) afternoon balloon release, and b) standing around waiting for the king to come out to the balcony and wave.

 

PRO: Sun doesn’t set until 10 p.m.

CON: It snows in the summer. And everyone’s in bed before the sun goes down, anyway.

 

PRO: Trolleys have cafe cars, a genius idea.

CON: However, to ride said cafe car you must fork over six euros, which gets you a coffee and croissant. Oh, and no credit cards accepted. Oh, and no riding without consuming something.

 

PRO: Some people will actually give you directions.

CON: Those people will talk and act like child molesters.

 

PRO: Chotchsky’s Nordic looks make him fit right in.

CON: It’s all fun and games until a drunken Swede sticks his finger in Chotchsky’s face and says “YOU’RE one of those fah-king Danes, aren’t you!”

 

PRO: The protagonist of Philip Roth’s “American Pastoral”, a well-intentioned and loving family man, is named “The Swede” Levov.

CON: All Swedes are, in actuality, complete dicks.