two long weeks. i’m just going to go through some highlights instead of relating each and every detail. i hopped a bus in munich to head up to prague sometime in the mid-afternoon. the metro would’ve been an easy way to get to the bus station, but i had nothing else to do that morning and i didn’t feel like waiting at the station for hours. i loaded up on breakfast food and then smuggled a bag of rolls & thick sliced bread & sausage from the breakfast buffet at the hostel. and just started walking. took me a few hours, but i got to walk through this immense BMW testing & manufacturing plant. i mostly saw overpriced sports car sedans being marketed to soccer-moms & -dads overcompensating for thirty years of slow spiritual suffocation hoping to placate their dead dreams with four-hundred-horse-power fuel-injected smoke-belching German-engineered engines, but i’m sure they were hiding Nazi panzers in the warehouses somewhere.

the bus to prague was plush. luxurious. coffee and cookies for free. BUT. and this is a big but. the bastards forced the captive travelers on the bus to watch eight hours worth of, first, The Lake House with keanu reeves, and, second, an entire season of Friends, all in Czech. if it had been a plane, i would’ve made a bomb threat. Abu Ghraib treats people better than that.

prague was rainy & cold & thus dismal & grey. but i got there at the tail end of the spring festival, so i got to eat cheap sausages & strange fried dough rings in the central square. the square, usually empry except for the crowds of bored tourists staring at the astronomical clock waiting for the wooden puppets to stifly and briefly animate, was instead covered in tiny wooden structures hawking food and random trinkets. i also tried “traditional” czech goulash (OK) and beer (excellent). other highlights of prague included looking out over the city through sheets of pouring rain from the castle high on the surrounding hills.

but the dreary weather wore on me quickly. i was glad to go to budapest finally. i took a bus again, with the same bus company, and this time we were subjected to Something’s Got to Give, with keanu reeves, and two seasons of Friends, all in Hungarian. sure, the USSR is gone, but rampant human rights violations are alive and well in central/eastern europe. the countryside was more entertaining than the “entertainment.” mostly comprised of big empty fields and thick forests over extremely flat land (somewhat like kansas), we stopped at a few crumbling post-communist towns. i don’t remember their names; they were almost completely made up of towering, identical concrete apartment buildings. dozens of them. pre-fabricated to looks like gigantic monuments to the alienation of labor and so forth.

due to an automobile accident outside prague, i got to budapest two hours late, around 1 am, about 6 km from my hostel. the metro was closed and the night bus system was incomprehensible without a background in Hungarian. a cool language, but with few similarities to English. so i walked, which wasn’t bad, just long. and interesting. it looked like every store and market in the inner city of budapest had done spring cleaning at once, and the curbs were piled high with furniture & boxes & old computers & blankets. in some places, a member of the huge group of homeless budapest residents occasionally sleeping on a couch or a used bed. but most of the furniture was being tossed in the street, stomped, beaten, or otherwise destroyed by drunken young revelers. this was happening on every main street i walked down. very interesting first impression.

my hostel was nice, more like a friend’s apartment than a hostel, actually. the second night there, the owner made this awesome Hungarian “french” toast for dinner, and my fellow reisdents & i drank cheap Hungarian beer (OK) and chilled inside. another day, i shelled out 15 euros or something and spent a day in a Hungarian bath house. we drank a few beers around noon, then walked to a nearby park where the bath was housed in a huge yellow stone building. i rented a bathing suit and wandered out into a giant heated pool full of older Hungarians playing chess and sitting around. the bath served beer and other drinks to bathers, and you could even go sweat out toxins in a super-heated sauna. i could’ve stayed there for hours.

another highlight of Budapest was buying a chocolate bar and sitting on a park bench with a wino. he didn’t speak English well, but we drank cheap wine out of a plastic jug and talked about women from the different surrounding countries. he loved Ukranian women and implored me to go to Ukraine and bring him one back. his wife was very fat and mean, he said. i bought a cheap box of wine and left it with him. i’m certain he would do the same if our places were reversed.

budapest was great. i spent a lot of time planning my next move, which i deemed the Great Train Ride through Serbia, Kosovo, and Macedonia. the week slipped by quickly, and suddenly it was time to head south to Greece…

oh well. i walked down to the colliseum again and met jess & strolled around a bit before heading back to termini station to catch one of the few trains to bologna. now, on my way there i tried to use an atm on one of the main streets of Rome, but my ATM card was rejected. i figured it was an isolated incident…

…then i got to bologna hoping to eat some delicious bolognese food and realized that my ATM card wouldn’t work there either. karma? no. my bank (missoula federal credit union) apparently noticed my card was being used abroad–after 44 days and 8 seperate countries–and put a fraud alert out on the damn thing. stupid bastards. i ended up eating mcdonald’s hamburgers in the culinary capital of Italy.

also, because i couldn’t use my ATM card to get cash, and thus use the easy ticket machines, i ended up overpaying for my train ticket to Munich (with my credit card) by 31 euro. the exact amount i owed the hostel in Rome. karma? maybe… but my card had been declared invalid the first day i was in Rome, so i actually wouldn’t have been able to pay the hostel either way. life is strange i guess.

i arrived in Munich and spent about 8 hours waiting for the bank in Missoula to open so i could call them via Skype and reactivate my card. finally, armed with cash, i checked in & went to sleep. the next few days in Munich were spent fairly tamely. random walking around to different tourist attractions. the most exciting part was definitely walking over to the olympic park that was built on scraps of WWII debris in the 1980s. you can climb up on this huge hill, the highest spot in Munich, and look out over the entire city, which is completely covered in red tile rooves & dotted with dozens of church steeples, all against a backdrop of the snowy Alps. quite a sight. my hostel was OK as hostels go… i was staying in a forty person dorm, which got a bit loud, but was ok. the real attraction was the big breakfast buffett that i exploited for three hours every morning.

on Saturday, i walked to the nearest store & bought as many beers as i could carry (only 39 cents, but damn good) and settled in to watch the Machester United game with an australian guy i’d just met. the game barely started when this American guy with Manson-esque eyes started raving at us about some book he was writing. it was my fault, really, because i asked the bastard what he was doing in the corner with his laptop. he told us some crazy story about getting caught up with some Russian millionaire he said was Rasputin reincarnated, who led him down an evil path and gave him a heart attack in London. he said that he died & was sent to a place of fire and demons. he was thrown in front of a demon council and offered riches, power, fame–but (you can see where this is going) he invoked the name of Jesus Christ and was resurrected. i admit, the guy–Ben Roberts–had a startling charisma that would probably attract the kind of people who think JFK was murdered by reptiles from outer space. Ben went on to say that he’d been given a task of writing down his journey & writing a best-selling book. he raved about how he had a publisher & was poised to make millions & wait until you see the movie version! he seemed a bit unhinged. but, anyway, shameless plug–look for “Murder and Resurrection of the Soul” by Ben “Smith” sometime over the summer. should be riveting.

i had only planned on having a few beers, but this asshole prompted me to drink my entire stash (and Man U lost), and then i took a long nap. that night i met some Americans from Clemson University and ate a huge pretzel, but it was relatively uneventful… the next day was Easter Sunday–and my HALF WAY POINT–so i was saving my energy until then. amazing to think about. i’d been traveling for about a month and half, but it felt like just yesterday i got on a plane in Philly and landed in London. i thought back on my travels…thousands of miles, tons of crazy cities and times and people. but what was really startling was realizing that i still had another month and half left. i was still solidly focused on the future; i could reminisce at Bucknell. where would i go from here? what would i do?

well, for starters, i walked into the old center city sunday and took pictures of all the old buildings downtown, then headed to the Bavarian national museum, which was only one euro on sundays. it was fairly exciting as museums go, but i’d really grown tired of the museum paradigm. i wasn’t built for the museum tour. living in the past never appealed to me. i went back to the hostel and looked up some current events & found a classical music concert going on in a park nearby. ah, what the hell, i’ll go. it was raining buckets, but i felt like i needed some culture, so i walked to the park and stood among about a dozen locals under a little pavilion while some German muscians played random orchetra tunes. it was great until the wind wipped up and it got really cold & wet. i finished my dinner/sandwich and went back the hostel.

the Clemson students i met had found another handful of people who were also studying in Brussels with them, so i bought a beer at the hostel bar and settled in for an extremely eventful night. one of the Clemson guys was leaving in the morning and decided to spend boatloads of money on us for some reason. he bought round after round of jaeger shots (it was Jaeger’s Hostel, after all) and we all drank big liters of strong German beer. a good time. we spilled out onto the street and headed in the direction of the Haufbrau Haus, a huge beerhall that attracts tourists and locals alike. you go into this huge hall lined with big wooden tables and filled to the brim with people laughing & talking & drinking beer out of giant steins. very very German. we wobbled in and sat down and ordered more liters of beer and plates of food. the food is great; huge pretzels and sausages with sauerkraut and potatoes. great stuff. but at one point i guess our tables were being too loud, so we were asked politely to leave.

as we filtered out towards the exit, one of the Clemson students (names not mentioned for legal reasons) decided to try to steal one of the stein glasses while it was semi full of beer. this didn’t go unnoticed as she tried to walk past the bouncers at the front door. i’m not sure exactly what happened, but the altruistic part of me wants to think that i went back inside to help her out. one way or another, i ended up in a shouting and then pushing match with a bouncer, and then found myself tackled to the ground by several big German guys. it probably didn’t help that i was laughing and yelling and making fun of them in English the whole time. i guess that pissed them off enough to call the police (i distinctly remember one of them telling me i had a big mouth and slapping me with a glove–that’s not really a crime though).

to my surprise, i wound up cuffed and in the back of a cop car, then taken up to the local police office. it was pretty comical; the policemen were skinny, pale young guys and the entire police office was one room, with two tiny desks & a few shreds of paperwork. again not helping my case, i proceeded to make fun of the cops and their entire situation. they looked through my wallet and seemed unable to read my driver’s license, so i told them i was from Nashua, Montana, a combination of my birthtown in New Hampshire and the state i currently live in. i told them i didn’t know any German, and then listened as they talked to each other in the native language about getting money out of me, even though i was only accused of being drunk in public. the paler cop told me that i needed to pay a fine of 1000 euro. i laughed in their faces. he kept going; i was to go to an ATM and withdraw the money (that’s not sketchy at all). i told him i wanted to call the US Embassy in Berlin and tell them i was being defrauded. that must have gotten their attention, because they rapidly came around to the idea of letting me go.

i was cut loose and walked (very) swiftly back to the hostel with a preliminary arrest form as a souvenir. slept like a baby. the next few days were spent licking my wounds. i’d had enough of Germany, and was just a little rattled from my Easter experience. Munich was a great place, despite the whole incident, but nine nights in one place was way too long.

besides, i needed rest for the next parts of my journey, which would be a real test. Prague, then Budapest, then a train through Serbia to Greece, all places that speak completely unfamiliar languages. the home stretch…

overnight trains sound like the bees’ knees. you knock out a travel day and save money on accomodation, all while resting up to adventure around your next destination. this is only true if 1) the train leaves before or on midnight, 2) it takes greater than five hours to reach your next stop, and 3) you aren’t crammed into a 6 person compartment with non reclining seats that have the consistency of asphalt mixed with razor sharp glass because you were too cheap to pay for a sleeping berth.

my train didn’t meet any of those criteria. i arrived in la spezia around three or four o’clock after a day of hiking that started when i woke up with the dawn. the only overnight train to Rome left at 3am and arrived in Rome around 8am. i bought a second-class ticket unaware of what that entailed and waited patiently in the mcdonald’s of the la spezia train station for twelve hours. on the bright side i met all sorts of interesting prostitutes and homeless people once the real patrons of the station dispersed. they even spoke english.

i got to Rome after a sleepless night. found my hostel after walking up and down a hill for two or three hours because the tourist office sucks at giving directions. the receptionist at ciao bella hostel was a young italian guy who creepily hit on all the girls checking in before me, even though one was a fifty-year-old overweight woman from chicago. i finally just crawled into bed and fell asleep after checking in.

the next day i agreed to meet the Lambda Espana crew + paul quinn, who was in from stockholm for a visit, at their hostel near the vatican sometime in the evening. i woke up early and warmed up pizza a couple british guys gifted me when they checked out. i walked about a hundred yards out of my hostel and stumbled on the spanish steps. not that i could see them. they were completely covered in tourists and the local talent that follows tourists like flies to shit. artists selling cheap drawings of johnny depp or richard gere, pakistani guys handing out roses, & thoroughly humiliated horses tied to carriages helmed by bored italians smoking cigarettes (the ubiquitous sign of industrial tourism in full swing). i couldn’t even walk down the stairs without kicking oblivious families in the shins and backs.

disheartened. not sure why, i should have expected this kind of foolishness. the big three–london, paris, rome. full of middle-aged American men in baggy cargo shorts & backpacks tugging along families of four, crowds of asian tourists snapping pictures of horseshit on ancient cobblestone streets, & vicious hordes of old ladies in bucket hats with bright yellow nametags on lanyards around their necks. i passed the antico cafe greco, a famous coffee shop that has served the black stuff to hundreds of great writers and minds over the years. it was just a big stone sign & huge gun metal doors fashioned like a bulwark against the flood of camera flashes and cheap I heart rome t-shirts on the streets outside. the doors were locked to me, i was trapped with the swine.

around the corner, something interesting. a handful of young italian guys taping down a broad peice of linoleum with duck tape and stretching. i was curious what they were up to, so i sat down on the steps of a nearby church and ate my pizza. they were break dancers. thank god. there were literally thousands of blank faced clones running around bothering tourists with the same handful of roses or cheap idiotic plastic trinkets or fake sunglasses looking for what amounted to a handout, but which had the added prospect of making the buyer feel like a jackass when his new purchase broke under a strong breeze. it was nice to see someone using their talent and creativity to remove money from the wallets of tourists without also cheating them of what little dignity they must have had left.

i watched them for a while. they were actually pretty good, and played to the crowd really well. they finished their show and pulled up the linoleum and left. i tossed them a few coppers and moved on. piazza de popolo, that huge castle next to the river, the bridge in front of it covered in menacing statues of angry avenging angels, and finally the vatican. st. peter’s square. famous for such things as multiple movies with tom hanks’ mullet & having the most phallic symbols per sq. foot of any place in the world. the second part is especially ironic & gives me hope that the whole institution of catholicism is just a big penis joke. the square was crowded with the traditional tourist groups. it was somewhat hard to move, but i got the requisite pictures of saints, jesus, and the occasional unmarked black BMW sneaking into a secret garage in the side of the miniature soveriegn nation.

i wandered back to the place i was supposed to meet the Espana kids and sat on a park bench. they came down finally and we went in search of a decent place to eat that wouldn’t completely destroy my meager budget. after days of isolation in the CT with only a handful of non-english speaking italians around, it was good to see some friendly faces that i knew. after a long search we came upon a random pizzaria that didn’t sell pizzas for two hundred dollars. damn good pizza. i got anchovies. you gotta try something new every now and then.

we called it an early night, since dan, dp, phil, & squat had all come in on a late night train from Milan. paul quinn was up to rage, but we agreed to save it for the last night. anyway, the next morning i woke up early and went to the super market. bought sandwich fixings & boxed wine, then walked the long road down to the colliseum to meet paul quinn. to make up for lost time we drank the cheap wine, which was actually good because it was italian, and walked around ancient roman ruins. i had expected rome to be a huge metropolis of marble & brick columns & buildings & arches, with statues sprouting out of every street corner. actually, the roman ruins are fairly limited and run down & mostly still under excavation. still, there’s something interesting about looking down on an ancient forum where old men used to make unilateral decisions that doomed or saved millions of romans every day.

paul and i finished the wine, ate the sandwiches, and walked to the pantheon to wait for the Espana kids. the pantheon was really awesome. an architectural wonder. the huge concrete dome and imposing columns were well suited to the purpose of glorifying the pagan gods of rome, but looked strange retrofitted with wooden torture devices (crucifixes) & even stranger still filled with hordes of camera-wielding north face jackets. i bet this place was something before industrial tourism (c).

our Lambda group now reunited, we all walked to a grocery store and bought food for dinner before going up to the Espana hostel to cook some food and drink beers. their hostel was definitely superior to mine, with a big open common room and a clean kitchen that could fit more than two people. the Espana crew made spaghetti and i ate bread & then we spilled out into the roman night to buy more beer and sit in a plaze somewhere. we settled in plaza de popolo underneath a thousand year old egyptian obelisk stolen by some roman warmonger, a phalanx of loud americans swilling cheap italian beer in the pale roman moonlight. at some point, a phone rang, and out of the night came Ross Campoli. he’d been stodying abroad in Rome for months, and was actually just getting out of class.

Ross was full of stories of raging in the roman streets and italian countryside. he knew a good gelato place and lots of good bars, so we gathered ourselves for a walk & set off in the direction of an irish pub. inauthentic maybe, but my italian skills are lacking. the rest of the night blurred into beer & conversation & roman brick, and just like that my short time in rome was over.

towering apartment structures blocked out the already diluted sunlight that tried unsuccessfully to spill onto the Milano streets. cars and bikes and mopeds and motorcycles zoomed by without regard for lights, signs, or pedestrians. i almost got back on the metro and headed for the airport, but i remembered that vision of the Cinque Terre and began wandering about looking for my hostel. a young guy working at a supermarket pulled out his iPhone when i asked where it was, and he pointed me down the street about a block. a sign hung bitterly onto the side of a drooping dirty apartment. “Emmy Hostel Milan.” awesome, that’s my spot.

there was no reception, only a little buzzer next to a peice of paper saying, simply, “Emmy.” i pressed it, and a smooth italian voice asked, “what do you want?” i told him i had a reservation and my name, and he buzzed me in. on the fourth floor of the dark winding staircase was a door sporting the name of the hostel. i went inside. a tall twenty-something man with greased hair and a huge puffy coat sat behind a counter. he wore gold chains and looked like a cross between Jersey Shore and Jay-Z. he asked for my passport. um… then i noticed that underneath the glass of the countertop were handwritten notes in many languages all thanking the owner for a great stay at the Emmy Hostel. in the corner was a Hostelworld logo just above a carefully pruned bonzai tree. a coffee maker dripped complimentary coffee into a small pot. ok, this place is kosher, if strange and creepy. i checked in, then realized i had no cash. so i sprinted down the street while Jay-Z watched my bags and held my passport and got some euro out of an ATM. i breathed a small sigh of relief when Jay-Z’s crackling voice buzzed me back inside.

once in my room, i set about planning my journey in the Cinque Terre national park. there were really no hostels or budget hotels to speak of in the park’s five tiny towns, so i decided to buy a sixty euro tent tha i looked up online. split over four days, it should leave me just under budget, with enough money for tin cans of baked beans and spam. i had a short conversation with my roommates–German exchange students from Korea and Illinois–then slept peacefully just above the raucus noise of Milan.

i woke up and snuck down the hallway to the only bathroom in the hostel. my roommates were gone, back to Germany, and without them i was the only person left in the small hostel. to my surprise, an old grandmotherly woman beckoned me over to the counter and handed me a tray with hot coffee, juice, milk, croissant, and fresh fruit arranged on it. breakfast. sweet. i checked out, hopped the metro, and was back at the Centrale Stazion in no time. i wanted to see the Duomo downtown, but i would rather spend my time bumping from sporting goods store to sporting goods store looking for my tent. unfortunately, most of the stores in Milan are fashion outlets and overpriced kebab shops, so i got on my train to Genoa with the intention of getting my tent there, just before the edge of the national park.

Genoa was much more to my tastes. still a big city, it had much more character. loud italians waving and yelling to each other outside the train station. identical shops run by chinese immigrants lining the main street. ocean water lapping at the harbor walls. unfortunately, it was also the birthplace of one of the biggest assholes in recorded history–Christopher Columbus–and the Genoans had a huge statue situated at the entrance to the train station. i spat on it, unable to do anything more drastic without somone noticing, and went down the street to a prominent and spacious camping store. it looked like a mini REI, except completely stocked with European brand gear. the owner spoke only italian, but after gesturing and pointing at figures and numbers and digging up English guides, she picked a beautiful two person tent out for me. it was on sale from one hundred euros and weighed only one and a half kilograms. less than my laptop.

happy as a bear, i walked back to the train station and bought the one euro train ticket to the first Cinque Terre town, Monterosso. when i arrived, the scene was enchanting and uplifting. no more skyscrapers or boulevards or hazy skylines. just crashing ocean waves and high terraced cliffs. i shouldered my pack and walked around the slight bend to the town proper. it was much smaller than i expected, its buildings stacked up in the tiny cove like legos. colorful walls and shutters and crumbling stucco. amazing place. the streets were narrow and off-limits to all but the smallest vehicles. locals dashed around on tiny covered tricycles with compact cabins and trunks. they sounded more like lawn mowers than motorcycles, and were appropriately called “Apes.” i walked around town a bit, but everything was basically closed. i caught the tourist office just as it was preparing to close at 5pm, and the woman told me that, since it wasn’t tourist season, no supermarkets or budget restaurants would be open. at all. leaving me with just a few expensive markets and seafood shops to buy food. she also told me that camping in the park was “discouraged.” i smiled.

after buying a tin of tuna and a loaf of bread that said it was “ideal for toast” (what a horrible invention… it’s basically stale bread that they sell for thirty cents cheaper than regular bread. so you buy it thinking, well, this could be toast or bread. but for thirty cents less, they take away the entire bread option. ridiuclous), i started walking up the coastal pathway to Vernazza, the next town over. the hike is supposed to be the most challenging of the coastal paths, but only takes an hour and a half. the sun is sinking low, but i’m not worried, as the times are probably appropriate for lazy tourists. but the path is closed. i talk to a group of German trekkers, who tell me that dozens of the paths around the park are under construction or closed in the off season. great.

unintimidated, i decided to start up the winding road that goes back into the park proper and over the extremely steep terraced hills to Vernazza. this was a road proper, with lanes and lines and pavement, so the going is easy, although i got strange looks from the local drivers. the road has a crazy grade… after only three kilometers of straight hiking, i was tired and probably had ascended three kilometers as well. the town below began lighting up as the sun disappeared behind the opposite ridge. the view was beautiful, but i needed to keep going to find a campsite. i underestimated the number of people that lived outside the town proper. the hillsides were covered in olive trees and grapevines, which lined terrace after terrace. i couldn’t bushwalk up the ridge, as the uncleared sides were choked with thick vines and other vegetation. the moon peeked out from behind a cloud, and i got worried. but i also got brave, and walked up a little used path just before a tunnel and into a shaded glen next to a run-down terrace. i cleared away a few rocks and covered my approach with some bushes and other foliage, then pitched my tent. that was an adventure. brand new tent in the darkness. but it worked out just fine and the ground was covered in soft grass. i had a delicious meal of tuna and stale bread, then went to sleep.

i didn’t anticipate how cold the night would get. i had set the tent up entirely in my t-shirt. but since i was too cheap to buy a sleeping bag or blanket, i just wrapped my self in every stitch of clothing from my bag. that wasn’t really enough. i got maybe four hours of sleep between the sound of cars rumbling underneath me through the tunnel and the cold biting at me. thank god i bought such a nice, insulated tent, or i would have frozen right in place.

i woke up the next day exhausted, but a breakfast of tuna and stale bread woke me up. i walked back into town and bought some canned fruit and water, and then set off to the next town over. once i got off the road itself, the hiking was easy over the terraced landscape. the views were beautiful. bright sun peeking through a few clouds against a deep blue sky. its rays reflected off the calm ocean and sparkled through the olive trees. the whole place smelled of olives and wine and lavender. the fresh air felt great. i passed through Vernazza, which had no market to speak of and bars offering five or six euro beer. clearly a tourist spot. then on to the clifftop town of Corniglia. unlike the other villages, which were built down near the water in cramped valleys next to marinas, Corniglia was built high atop a plateau. a short hike down off the ridge brought me into the middle of town. there was an amazing panoramic view from the central square of town, which was heavily fenced off on the side that looked out over the cliff. the buildings were all tall, narrow structures with winding staircases leading between them. it looked like a village from a medieval fantasy movie.

on the other side of town, the high ridge path was closed and the only way through to the next village was the coastal trail. the descent between the two, which also connected the town with the train station (the only link to the outside world) was comprised of almost 400 broad brick steps and over two dozen switch backs. it was a hell of a climb, and one that locals made with bags of groceries or couches or suitcases or whatever else came on the train. i asked a local if there was a market where i could by food. he said that the town bought all its food off market trucks that arrived on sundays. apparently, the park opened its narrow dirt path along the ridge to a group of five or six trucks from La Spezia, the closest real city, who four-wheeled down into Corniglia every sunday to sell basic groceries and essentials, as well as clothes, bedding, and luxury items. i guess that meant i wasn’t going to get a blanket or sleeping bag.

i found a gap in the retaining wall on the steps down to the train station that led into a small covered clearing. i did the same thing as before, removing rocks and lining my sleeping area with leaves and soft grass before covering the opening to my campsite with brush to hide it from passing hikers. of which there were many. a few of them stopped to watch me setting up my tent before moving up the trail. people are funny; there’s an amazing vista right in front of them with crashing waves and towering cliffs and wheeling seabirds, but they’d rather stay and gawk at a single kid setting up a tent. i set up camp and went to get some gelato. amazing homemade ice cream as big as my head for only two euros. then, dinner of stale bread and canned fruit, and sleep.

similar experience to the last night. i got maybe four hours of sleep before being woken up by the early train, which passed through a tunnel immediately below me, and the patter of rain. i hopped up and hurriedly packed my bag and finally my tent before the rain started coming down properly. i put on my rain jacket and started off down the coastal trail. the scene was beautiful, with hazy clouds and a roaring ocean. but after passing through Manorola, which has great swimming holes i couldn’t experience, and arriving at Riomaggiore, i’d had enough. on the high trail the rain had turned to sleet, and i was soaked through and freezing. the tourist office in Riomaggiore, which is the final town and my final campsite, told me that rain was expected for the next few days. no way i could camp in that when i was freezing my butt off on the bare ground the previous two nights. i bought the one euro ticket to La Spezia and headed off towards Rome, the beautiful countryside of the Cinque Terre behind me. in two and a half days, i’d hike all the available trails but two and my legs were spent. time to go back to the city and regular tourism and internet access.

my hostel was deep inside the cluttered and narrow Morrocan district–the Albaicin. this Mulsim neighboorhood was the only section of Islamic Granada to escape the jackassery of the Spanish inquisition and reconquista. it was a great place, filled with steep cobblestone alleys and shops hawking Morrocan rugs and clothing. tea houses feature amazing North African and Middle Eastern style food, tea, coffee, and hookahs; all of them fill the air with sweet smells and loud music. i wandered around just looking at everything, until i found signs pointing to my hostel. the Oasis Hostel Granada was another hostel experience to add to my greatest hits list. inside, the huge glass windows of the roof top terrace spill sunlight down the middle of the building, bathing the lounge area and hallways with natural light. the rooms are big and spacious, and the kitchen is clean and large enough for several people to cook at once. i’m happy.

i checked in, then got on the internet to contact Ross. i sat outside the hostel, chatting with a few Japanese travelers before he showed up. he decided to show me around a bit, and we walked down to Grand Via, the main road splitting Granada down the middle, talking about life abroad. we met up with Dan and some more of the Bucknell Espana crew. after a month by myself, meeting new people before they quickly disappeard from my life, it was refreshing to see faces i knew and a language i spoke. a pang of homesickness? nope, just a little less stressful. Dan and Ross and I walked around a bit before going into an Irish pub and getting a pint of Guinness. i’d forgotten it was St. Patrick’s Day. everything starts to run together when you’re traveling everyday. the Irish pub was mostly filled with ex-pats or American exchange students wearing tall St. Patrick’s Day hats. afterwards we bought cheap litros of Alhambra beer and climbed up the a plaza just under the mirador in the Albaicin. we looked out at the brightly lit Alhambra and drank and talked. the hills of Granada reminded me of the hills of Missoula. climbing up into one made you feel thousands of miles out of the city, but, there below you, sparkling in the night, it remained.

Ross and Dan went back to their host families to get dinner and i went back to the hostel to make food. i got my free welcome drink from the bar (a great hostel) and ate my food before going back out with the intention of meeting Ross and Dan and more Lambdas somewhere near Grand Via. my map reading skills have already been proven to be terrible, and i couldn’t find them. but i did meet up with a few of the Japanese university students i got to know earlier and we walked around a bit before returning to the hostel for a few drinks. a good first night.

the next day i met Dan and DP and Phil for a game of Spanish futbol at a nearby park. being the worst one there (and wearing my carhartts and sidewalk surfers, completely devoid of tread), i played goalie. the random Spanish street kids we played against completely kicked my ass. the Lambda gang did better, but it was pretty clear that the Spanish kids were brought up kicking around a soccer ball every moment of their lives. give me non-round ball and some pads and i could probably do the same thing to them. it was a great experience though.

that night it was a Bucknellian’s birthday, so we bought litros and drank in the park before making the long trek up into the Albaicin to a random night club. it had a big outdoor sitting area that looked onto the Alhambra and a dark cave area with dimly lit tables. it was thursday, so the place wasn’t exctly packed, but we drank our free drinks and had a good time anyway. though random locals made up most of the crowd on arrival, as the night wore on it became an American affair. we left finally, and got schwarma, which is the cousin of the Berlin kebab and almost as good of a drunk food. it’s the same principle, lamb or chicken or something shaved and grilled and shoved inside a big pita, then topped with lettuce and sauces. unlike the kebab, though, the pita is closed, then grilled. damn it’s good. i wish they had one in Missoula served with elk steak.

the following morning i entertained myself for a while by walking around the Albaicin and looking out from the mirador high above the valley. the plaza is next to the Church of Saint Nicolas and was filled with tourists, students, and people hawking cheap jewelry. the sun peeked out from behind the clouds long enough to highlight the steep cliff sides of the Alhambra’s plateau and give me a beautiful view down the valley. the air was clear and i could see for miles.

when i finally got a hold of Ross (goddamn technology is conveniently infuriating), i decided it was probably time to pack up my stuff and move in with him. apparently, the weekend i had arrived was a big festival in which thousands of young Spaniards took to the streets and drank heavily. a great festival. but it also meant that the hostel was booked solid over the next two days, so i had to go live with Ross and his host family. his host mother rented out the spare bed in Eric’s room for twenty euro. i didn’t mind paying, i got several great meals and a far more comfortable place to crash each night. the apartment was on the other side of town from the hostel, so i grabbed my stuff and followed Ross.

it was a nice place when i eventually got up to it. Ross’s host mother was an extremely nice woman (especially for taking me in). we didn’t really talk to each other, me being confined the English and her to Spanish, but we still communicated and i liked her. she showed me my bed and the shelves where i could put all my things and the bathroom i could use. it felt more like home than anywhere i’d been around Europe yet.

Ross and DP and i went down the street and bought several litros of cheap beer and walked to the outside drinking spot (it has a name in Spanish, but i can’t even come close to spelling the damn thing). we’d come there the previous night when it was completely deserted. it was basically comprised of a big concrete square with concrete tables and benches and the occasional planted tree. it was tucked next to a highway and had a tall concrete barrier between the open area and the freeway. there were a few spots covered by metal rooves. in the distance, several broad signs were covered in graffiti and towered over the whole thing. it had seemed pretty simple, but now it was completely filled with teenage kids and university students all standing in tightly packed circles drinking cheap beer, sangria, and liquor and smoking cigarettes. we hugged our litros and pushed through the thick crowd until we could get near a low standing barrier. then we just set down our extra bottles and joined in the drinking.

trying to direct the other Lambdas and Bucknellians was difficult, but eventually all of us were in the same place. we had beer and rum, but we were clearly underprepared. some Spanish kids had snagged shopping carts from local grocery stores and filled them with cheap snack food, cups, and most importantly huge red trash cans that they filled with ice and sangria. a few kids had beer bongs and mini kegs of cheap beer. it was the world’s biggest block party. we drank and talked and listened to the Spanish drinking songs for hours. at one point i stood up on the low concrete wall and looked out over the entire spectacle. amazing. every street and plaza around me was completely filled with raucus drinking Spaniards of all ages. an awesome night.

uneventful morning, because i slept through all of it and woke up around one or two. a great time, right before the best meal of the day. Ross’s host mom was a good cook and made delicious authentic Spanish food. after weeks of cooking pasta and rice for myself or just eating break and water, it was a welcome relief. after eating, Ross, Eric, Dan and i walked farther into the hills and past the Alhambra. i’d heard that there was a hippy commune up in the mountains and that people lived in the many caves out there. it sounded like a great way to experience Granada, and i momentarily considered moving into one… but it was also cold and raining and shitty while we hiked, so my consideration of moving into the hills was a short one.

the next few nights we got tapas at several restaurants and basically just hit up the nightlife of Granada. tapas is a damn good way to drink and eat. one or two euro gets you a beer and some sort of awesome Spanish food. some places let you choose your own tapas, like hamburger made out of ham or shark or something crazy like that, while others just serve whatever their entree is that night and increase the awesomeness of each food item as your order more beer. i don’t think a better system of drinking and eating at the same time has ever been created. except maybe just straight drinking heavy dark beer, because you can get all your calories from that.

Granada flew past me like none of the places i’d visited before. even though i spent more time there than any other single place. and more time in Spain than any other country. i was not ready and not happy to leave it. Italy has a lot of goddamn work to do to justify flying out of the sunny, warm madness that is Andalucia.

arriving in cordoba is like seeing the ocean for the first time as a child. bright warm sunlight washes over the entire city and a deep blue sky smiles down on me as i step off the bus. its only just above 60 degrees (F), but it feels as if someone pulled the sun a few miles closer to earth. finally. exactly what i was looking for.

i decide to walk the 30 minute trek from the bus station to the hostel and save a few bucks on public transportation. turns out to be a good decision, as i get to see most of the small city on my way there. cordoba is a winding maze of narrow cobblestone streets and tall whitewashed buildings topped with bright red tile rooves. around every corner is another plaza with fountains and statues and churches. the basic city structure is beautiful, i think, until i step around a random corner and see the giant walls and looming tower of the mezquita. this huge mosque and palace is supposedly the greatest tribute to homesickness ever built. thick stone walls surround a beautiful courtyard dotted with orange trees and little ponds; water gurgles out of spickets and curls through a labyrinth of channels that feed the green manicured landscape. the main entrance to the palace is a giant arch of red and white stripes that leads into a forest of pillars and arches and amazingly intricate tile work. the building is a tremendous monument to the moorish past of southern spain.

after being unwittingly drawn into the mezquita, i finally get to my hostel. its a tiny place tucked in a side street just off the river. its called the terrace backpacker’s hostel for good reason, as it has a huge rooftop terrace with big, plush couches and tables that is open all the time. i check in, drop my stuff off in the big room, and just chill on the terrace looking out over cordoba. the hostel has amazing views of the surrounding area, the river, and the sun slowly sinking behind the tower of the mezquita. i make a little dinner of sausages, tortillas, and rice and sit outside until it’s too dark to see anything beyond the bright lights of church bell towers in the distance. the southern spanish air stays warm and dry well past the sunset, so i chill outside watching the twinkling lights of cordoba until i can barely keep my eyes open.

the next day i wake up and look around the hostel a little more. the receptionist and partial owner is a kiwi named kevin. there aren’t many people staying at the terrace, so he sits down with me on the roof as i eat a little breakfast by myself. he’s a friendly and gregarious guy with plenty of stories and advice about cordoba. afterwards i help him hose off the roof and move around various peices of furniture. in return kevin lets me steal a little food out of the “staff only” drawer in the kitchen.

lunch and then exploration. cordoba is dotted with old churches and monastaries, so i just wander around looking at them. there are hordes of tourists flooding into the mezquita and chewing on overpriced americanized meals at the cafes around the building. i plot out a route that goes far around them. by chance i get lost in the cramped jewish district on the edge of the historical center of town and wind up in a tiny temple that was used covertly by persecuted jews during the spanish catholic reign of jackassery. it’s an amazing place, only big enough for maybe twenty people and hidden behind non-descript wooden doors, but covered in ornate carvings and hebrew inscriptions. probably more interesting and impactful than the mezquita.

unfortunately, there aren’t many interesting people at the terrace hostel. a few americans on vacation from teaching spanish outside madrid. not wanting to go get tapas by myself, i just polish off a few spanish beers and go to sleep. a nice taste of relaxtion after the madness of madrid. the next day, kevin finds me at breakfast and takes me across the street towards the river to show me his new hostel. he just got a copy of the keys this morning. apparently, kevin has been working in spanish hostels for four or five years, first in malaga and then in cordoba, where as a partial owner of the terrace he built the place up from a shit hole into a great, chill place for backpackers. now, in the past few weeks, he finally found an old, empty apartment building up for lease that he could turn into a hostel of his own. the apartment looks promising. it has big rooms, a spacious kitchen, and, most importantly, a gigantic rooftop terrace with beautiful views of the entire city. it looks more suited to an upscale bar than a hostel, and i’m amazing kevin got a cheap lease to a location like this. as we walk around the empty building talking about ideas, i realize that kevin is actually interviewing me for a job. we lean out looking over the busy streets and tapas bars below his potential new hostel and he tells me about how he won’t have a license to run the place legally, so i could probably hang out in the country for a while and illegally work for him to fix up the hostel. he talks about wages and rooms and time frames. but i have to decline his offer. he looks disappointed but i’ve got to go to sevilla.

keep on moving down the road.

Sevilla –>

the next day is a short train ride to sevilla and then another long walk from the train station into the center of town. sevilla is much like cordoba–covered in palm trees, bright sunlight, and whitewashed buildings–but is bigger, more metropolitan, and busier. the main streets are crowded with locals drinking and eating and smoking at outdoor cafes that spill over into the streets and clog up traffic. i check into my hostel, which is a newer and more modern version of the terrace backpacker’s, complete with a giant rooftop space and a spotless guest kitchen. i put my stuff away, make a little rice, then set out to explore the city.

sevilla is even more beautiful than cordoba. it has broad avenues and beautiful plazas and amazing gothic and moorish monuments. but more importantly, it has huge, lush parks teeming with palm trees and fountains and cool, shady spots to relax. i thought the parisians did parks well, but the sevillan parks are twice as awesome. they have the same wide walking paths and random marble statues, but the landscape is wild and thick and green. i spend almost all day walking between parks and just sitting in the sunlight watching people go by.

eventually i wander down to the river and sit with my feet in the water. it doesn’t look clean, but there are people rowing boats and kayaking around, so i figure i won’t die. i head across the river and wander around the gypsy district, avoiding gypsy women trying read my palms and street vendors hawking bootleg CDs and DVDs. sevilla is more vibrant and alive than cordoba, which was more suited to relaxation and sightseeing.

back at the hostel, i meet a group of american exchange students who go to oxford. they’re on vacation from the rainy skies of england and spend most of their time sitting in the hot sun of the rooftop terrace. after exploring the city, i decide to do the same thing. buy a couple of big litros of beer or cheap sangria and catch up on my vitamin D. we sit and talk and laugh and drink. apparently there is a champions league game between a russian team and the local sevillan football squad, so we’re joined by two drunk, chain-smoking russians and a few young finlanders. it’s like the cold war all over again, except the russians offer us beer and i make them spaghetti. the owner of the hostel, a young south african named el nino, also hangs out with us, and together we make one big relaxed party on the terrace, spending most of the next few days drinking and talking under the sparkling sevillan sun.

one of the best experiences i’ve had on my trip. the russians leave for their football game and el nino makes some amazing italian rice concoction. even with the sun gone, sevilla is still warm enough to sit outside in the dark and eat. i have another beer, say goodbye to my american/south african friends, then go to sleep.

the next morning, i’m finally on my way to granada to see a few familiar bucknell faces. i’m excited, but i can’t really comprehend where the past few days disappeared to. i barely feel like cordoba or sevilla happened at all, which means i had a hell of a time. with a heavy heart, i hop on a bus to granada and watch sevilla and the month of march slowly fade behind me into the sunny green landscape and disappear behind the rocky mountains and crumbling bell towers of southern spain.

we land with a bump at the Madrid airport. i sleepily gather my bags and stare up at dozens of screens listing bus routes and times. i know which one to take because of my huge guidebook, which feels like a cinderblock in my backpack.. i hop on the bus, pay 50 cents or something, and fight off drooping eyelids to watch the city go by. Madrid doesn’t look too much different from other cities. narrow dirty streets and tall buildings with terraces and balconies. roaring traffic and crowds moving slowly from tourist site to tourist site. i get off the bus at a stop only a few blocks from my hostel–the Cat’s Hostel just south of Plaza de Sol, the center of Madrid and all of Spain. a few minutes later, i’m walking through the huge front door of the hostel. the bored-looking receptionist barely acknowledges my presence and simply mumbles, check-in is at 12. cool.

after a brief wander around the nearby areas, with my big pack on my back, i’m able to finally check into the hostel. the building itself is a nicely renovated Moorish palace, complete with colorful decorated arches and orante tiles covering the walls. it’s really a big work of art. and also really the only thing the hostel has going for it. i wind my way up the stair case to my room and just pass out on my top bunk. the room has sixteen beds, and more than half are full of sleeping patrons.

waking up, i go downstairs and into the bar area, which is just outside the locked courtyard of the hostel. the keys are little wristbands that you press to small electronic pads on all the hostel doors. in the bar, there are several stools and a few little tables where i plug in my laptop and start surfing away. across from me sits another American tapping away at her laptop keyboard. we chat briefly, but it’s interrupted by a loud drumming sound coming from right outside our hostel. she smiles at me, and we both run upstairs to grab our cameras. outside our hostel, at the end of the street, thousands upon thousands of Spaniards are marching in the street, waving signs and chanting slogans. a drum crew marches in a little bubble through the crowd, banging traditional melodies and fueling a dancing, moving mass of people.

my new friend and i hop up on a concrete block and start snapping pictures of the spectacle. she speaks a little Spanish and discovers that we’ve arrived on the international day of the woman. indeed, the marchers are composed of women’s working rights groups, pro-abortion groups, socialist and communist groups, and other fringe political interests. it’s quite a sight. women and men, teenagers and old women, all cheering and dancing and screaming slogans. the entirity of the broad boulevard is packed, shoulder to shoulder. i follow the front of the parade down through the street, losing my new American friend, taking pictures until i run out of battery power. someone who speaks English tells me that there must be three or four thousand people for this one march, and that it’s been going on for hours.

i walk back in the direction of the hostel. behind the march is a police escort followed by a handful of street cleaners. behind them there is no evidence of any parade having taken place. quite the operation. back in the hostel. i find my new American friend–Zuleikha–talking to a young British guy. Joe is apparently biking across Spain, and has been camping and riding for months. the hostel is a luxury for him, as his budget is much more insane than mine. they’re both really nice and talkative and we stay up late talking, making me forget all about not sleeping the previous day.

the next morning, i wander around Madrid stopping at random monuments and palaces. the city is covered by ornate churches and palaces and big open courtyards. the cathedral and royal palace are especially amazing. the sky opens up and turns a brilliant bright blue, and the sun even comes out to shine on everything. for the first time in europe, i actually take my coat off and walk around in a t-shirt. i decide to spend the day outside, and end up walking maybe a dozen miles through Madrid’s bustling city.

i get back to the hostel just in time to make dinner. i decide to heat up a cup of noodles, but i have to covertly use the microwave, as the Cat’s Hostel kitchen is off limits to patrons. even the microwave. or the sink. Cat’s is a crazy place, actually. the staff is grumpy and unresponsive and do a very poor job. the hostel is a huge work of Moorish art, which means that the hostel courtyard closes early and the staff watches closely to make sure all the tiling and stained glass stays intact. which makes sense. but they also enforce a basic bedtime for travelers who are around the hostel after midnight. i was told several times to “go to bed” by the staff… not “be quiet,” which would have been legitimate. instead, they treated everyone staying there like petulant teenagers. the big group of irish students staying with me noticed the same infantile treatment. the receptionist would sometimes ask to search their bags for alcohol…even though the drinking age in Spain is below the minimum age necessary to actually stay at Cat’s. basically, it was a terrible establishment.

i snuck in my noodles though, and settled in for a quiet night. then i’m approached by three gregarious Italian guys who are interested in making a “multicultural group.” they speak broken English, but they’re really friendly and full of stories about Italy and Italian football. the “multicultural group” is made up of them, me, two Brazilians on vacation from a real job, and one Japanese guy nicknamed “Nakumara.” the Italians reasoned that if they gathered a big group of people who speak different languages, then they could pick up any girl they came across. with Spanish, Portoguese, Italian, and Japanese all represented, we still all communicate in English. one of the Italians and i walk around the block and buy two big bags of boxed sangria. liter boxes of the wine are less than 50 cents. we all pack into the Italians small attic room and pour little glasses of wine. we toast Italia, America, Nakamura, etc until all seven or eight liters of wine is gone.

the Italians claim they have a bar they want to go to that was recommended by a Spanish guy they met. we gather our stuff and walk there. it turns out the Spanish guy was clearly being an asshole, as the bar is in the alternative lifestyles district and is full of gay men. yeah, that was a surprise. the Italians are pissed, so we leave quickly and go to a quiet deli that serves one euro liters of wine. we descend on the place and start buying and drinking and spilling huge mugs of wine and shouting Italian football fight songs between loud toasts. on the streets outside there is a small flamenco band doing a street show and we invite them in and buy a round of wine for them. they’re older Spanish guys in traditional dress and funny hats with guitars slung on their backs. they can drink, too.

we decide to find a real bar or club or something with actual women in it, rather than just dudes. on almost all the corners in the bar and club district in Madrid, well-dressed Spanish men stand with stacks of cards and coupons and beckon drunken wanderers into clubs with promises of free drinks. we don’t really know where we are going, so we talk to a few of these swindlers and follow them into a few bars. all the places have no cover charge, and also have no people in them. but we use our free drink coupons, and then leave, which doesn’t necessarily make the guy who led us to the bar very happy. we continue this process for a few bars before the Italians find a huge group of Italian students on holiday. the brazilians and i buy drinks and stand off the side. with their Portoguese backgrounds, they can understand and speak a little bit of Spanish, and I’m essentially clueless about the language, so our attempts at talking to the native Spanish girls are basically ignored. we stand by the crowded bar and snipe drinks until the bartender notices and we go outside to cool off. i’m bored at this point and decide to walk home to the hostel.

now, on a good day, in the sunlight, without wine fermenting in my belly and the taste of jameson in my mouth, Madrid is a goddamn maze that is only barely navigable. i usually also wander around with a map. none of these luxuries are available to me this night, however, and i’m on a street i’d never seen before. i walk a little ways before realizing i’ll never find my way back by just walking in random directions. i call a cab, figuring with all the free drinks i got tonight i could afford to spend a little money. the driver, however, speaks no English and has no idea where my hostel is. i can’t remember the name of the street, because street names and signs aren’t prominent features of the Madridian landscape. the friendly Spaniard proceeds to drive me a dozen blocks away from the hostel and drops me on the outskirts of a huge park. i toss him a few euro and leave.

no recognition. where am i? i find a metro station, since i have a metro card, but the subway closes after 3am. luckily, metro stations have big maps of the city behind plexiglass sheets under bright street lights just outside the entrance. reading the map is difficult. but i decide i know which way to go, and it doesn’t appear far. since Madrid radically cools off during the night, i decide to lightly jog in the direction of my hostel to keep my core temperature up or something.

keep in mind that i’m wearing a white t-shirt underneath my puffy coat. this white t-shirt is completely stained with red wine following the sloppy toasting with the flamenco players. it basically looks like i stabbed someone and let them bleed all over my shirt to the untrained eye. apparently when you dress like a murderer and simultaneously run down the street, you may attract the attention of the local authorities. a uniformed motorcycle cop stops my progress and questions me. in Spanish. habla English? nope. awesome. i can’t explain the stains on my shirt and slow jog down the street without the key Spanish translation of “i’m a drunk.” this lack of communication unfortunately leads to me being forced to sit on my hands, head bowed, on the curb while the cop radios his bacon friends. after a half hour or an hour or something, another motorcycle cop shows up who speaks extremely good English. i explain my predicament and he takes pity on me. he motions me onto the back of his motorcycle and gives me a lift back to the Cat’s Hostel. i stumble inside, ignore the nagging asshole at the front desk, and go to bed. what a night.

my appetite for Spanish police encounters exhausted, i decide to head for Cordoba next for some real rest and relaxation…

having arrived later in the day, i decided to chill out for a while, and then go to the louvre, which was free from 6pm on. walking through the dark paris streets, i could understand why the place was so famous. i’d be looking up at the whitewash walls of amazing apartment buildings, with wrought iron balconies and flower pots adorning their windows, and then suddenly turn the corner and see a huge, ornate building like the pantheon. everything was lit up and vibrant, and the streets were crowded with chattering parisians. the whole place was like a giant beehive stirred to life.
the louvre was some distance from the hostel, but it felt like nothing. every corner had a crowded restaurant with delicious smells or a lit up monument on it, and the pont neuf provided amazing views of the whole surrounding area. the louvre itself dominated the shore of the seine like a giant palace. wait, that’s what it is. even at 6pm on a … no idea what day that was… there were tons of people coming and going in the plaza surrounding the giant steel and glass pyramid that is the entrance. i descended the big stair case and was suddenly surrounded by thousands (millions?) of old peices of art and stolen culture from around the world. there were towering marble statues and pillars, tiny coins and peices of ancient jewelry, and so many paintings that my eyes began to hurt. people always say that you could spend weeks in the louvre and never see every single artifact, but, really, you don’t have to. the paintings and sculptures are arranged in chronological order first and cultural order second. once you enter a hallway full of 14th century french paintings, for instance, it’s fairly easy to see that essentially all of them adhere to the same theme and principles. the biggest exhibits and peices are those that break out of those themes and stand out to the eye. the mona lisa, for example, looks like just about every other painting of its time. dark background, illuminated and pale face, stoic and stationary portrait. it seems to be famous because it survived for so long in such crazy conditions, a few people wrote some awful books about it, and a master craftsman painted it. but really, da vinci’s other works are as, or more, spectacular and definitely less crowded.

walking around the place got old after a while, especially since it was paris, and i wanted to go do something exciting. so i walked all the way to the eiffel tower, which was lit up like a giant steel christmas tree. then i took the metro back to the hostel, and bought a delicious crepe before completely passing out.

the next day was spent in a dizzyingly similar fashion. i got up early, ate a meager breakfast of toast and coffee (i miss germany), chatten with a turkish girl who knew little english, then drew up a battle plan for tackling the major parisian sites. i can’t say i saw everything, but it felt like everything. after like 6 hours of wandering through crowds of tourists to see the arc, the dame, etc. i needed a break. don’t get me wrong, the entirity of paris is a photo op waiting to happen. the whole place is adorned in an organic and intoxicating beauty. but the places on the beaten path seemed world weary to me. i retired to luxembourg park and just sat, watching people walk by. the parisians really do parks right. huge expanses of green, open fields and tall trees surrounding marble statues and fountains and little miniature palaces. the whole place dotted with chairs and tables and benches. i have to say, luxembourg park was probably the most relaxing spot in my whole journey so far (retiro park in madrid is a pretty close second).

my sightseeing day was exhausting, so i stayed up long into the night drinking wine and talking to a german guy and two american exchange students from france that i’d just met. the german guy was really cool, and he wrote down my address in montana as if he was going to fly there tomorrow. haha. the next day, my last day, i woke up and went straight to the louvre (free on sundays). i didn’t have a bed that night, and i couldn’t sit around the hostel, so i had to go someplace warm to kill time. the louvre is perfect for that. i stayed for 7 or 8 hours, just listening to music and looking at awesome things from ancient history. analysis: people have been doing some bat-shit insane things for a long, long time. after i’d walked through every wing of the louvre (the islamic art wing was closed for renovations, disappointing…), i went back to the hostel, grabbed my bag from the luggage hold, and hopped the metro to the airport.

i planned to stay over in the airport and get on a really early flight to madrid. it seemed like a great idea. especially since the unlimited metro card i had could theoretically get me there for free. see, the metro in paris is a one-way-in kind of thing… you scan your ticket to get in, ride wherever you like, then exit freely without scanning your ticket again. the unlimited tourist card i got allowed me to go anywhere except versailles and the airport… but i figured i could bend the rules and save a few euro. which was working great, until i got off the metro in charles de gaul. as the train sped off behind me and the clock ominously clicked past midnight (thus devalidating my metro card), i noticed that there was an exit scanner to leave the metro platform. and it didn’t like my ticket. uhoh. metro stations–no matter where you are in the world–are not the best places to sleep at night. behind the scanner, which was the airport proper, i watched security guards with mean looking guard dogs making rounds. not encouraging. finally, a kindly old parisian man shuffled over from the airport side and noticed my plight. he offered to hold my huge backpack while i jumped over the scanner. i didn’t have any choice, plus he was an old man, so i could have beaten him up if he’d stolen my bag. so, over i went. no dogs in sight. i was free.

i found a nice abandoned/mcdonalds and pushed a bunch of chairs together to make a bed. next stop, madrid. paris, i’d be back.

however, Snuffel backpacker hostel was a great choice. the warm lights of the first floor bar and sitting area formed a refuge from the storm when i checked in. ascending a spiral staircase, my room is a huge dorm of twelve rooms on the second floor. the beds are comfortable and the sheets clean, so i immediately make use of them and sleep. the next day, breakfast is much lighter than the Dutch and German breakfast spreads i’ve become accustomed to. gone are the thick slices of cheese and sausage and heavy bread. instead, light toast and sweet jams (and good coffee) make up the breakfast buffet. the staff is friendly and cheerful, even at half-past seven in the morning.

first sightseeing tour in Bruges. the city first strikes me as a kind of Disneyland of medieval towns. while the huge tower and a handful of buildings are relics of the middle ages, most of the town was rebuilt in the 19th and 20th centuries in the medieval style with tourism in mind. all the streets are narrow, one-lane cobblestone paths, with tiny sidewalks abutting tall stone buildings. every single house, cafe, and laundromat in the center city is picturesque. tall windows, big stones, delicate spires, and high tile rooves, everywhere. i started taking pictures of everything until i realized that it was simply the norm in Bruges. the center Markt square is especially cool. its a huge, wide assembly area with fluttering flags, statues, and the like. but, like the rest of Bruges, it is covered with a veneer of commercialized tourism. the cafes on the Markt all claim to offer “authentic” waffles, cuisine, or anything “authentic” can be applied to. horse-drawn carriages sit idle in the square, waiting for tourists with loose wallets. locals hurry on their way with heads down or smirks on thier face, when they don’t avoid the center square altogether. identical tourist shops all hawk Bruges-labeled apparel, Belgian chocolate, or other kitsch.

there are cool, quaint places in Bruges, however. the museums and churches have beautiful facades and scupltures. tiny alley ways lead away from crowded streets and into small quiet parks that offer relaxing views of the canals and bridges. the fry shops serve amazingly good fries and mayonaise. and the remains of the outer wall are now cool parks with windmills and good panoramic views of the city.

the problem is that all this can be done in one busy day. five days starts dragging me down. the first night, stoked by the cool city around me, i go out on the town with a few fellow travelers–but the city streets are quiet and deserted. there’s literally no nightlife. low key bars dot the area, but our hostel serves the cheapest beer. there’s literally no reason to leave the hostel once you’ve seen the sites of Bruges.

the second day i plan on going to Brussels. but a sandwich i made with old mayonaise from the “free” food cupboard in the hostel kitchen cripples me. my first setback of the trip. i’m literally in bed for sixteen hours, miserable. after a long recovery, i decide to sample the local Belgian beers that night. and they’re really good. i’m a sucker for abbey brewed trappist ales. they’re basically my favorite beer… lots of flavor, great drinkability, super high alcohol content. what’s better than that?

my beer notes, just for my dad:
– Maes is the local cheap pislner of choice. it’s a standard amber and tastes… like every other pislner. but it’s only one euro a beer, so it’s worth mentioning.
– Bruges Tarwebier is a cloudy blond served in a short, stumpy mug. unflitered and the color of sunflowers. it has a big, substantial head and a light, fruit, almost spicy tast with no hoppy bitterness. maybe a slight malty aftertaste. good if you like blond ales. originated in Bruges, but i’m not sure it’s actually brewed in the city center
– Bruges Zot (from the same brand) is a heavier beer with bigger malt flavor and more complex spices. it’s a darker carmel color with a crystal clear body. the Zot is loaded with carbonation and leaves a fizzy, bubbly feel in your mouth and has a head that clings to the side of the glass.
– Westmalle Dubbel is a true trappist. in Belgium, only beers certified “trappist” by the government can bear the trappist name and special sticker. they must be brewed in abbeys by real monks from pure spring water sources, and most of the proceeds must go to charitable works. the Dubbel is a very dark beer with a hint of red coloring and a weak, chocolate colored head. it has a strong spicy taste leading into a thick malty body, and leaves an after taste in your mouth like you’ve just bitten into a peice of crusty french bread. exceedingly smooth, and served in a huge, thick goblet that looks like a soup bowl on stilts.
– Duvel is an abbey style beer from elsewhere in Belgium. abbey style beers are brewed in a similar fashion to trappists, and might even have links to monasteries, but are not true trappists or brewed by monks. the Duvel is a light, clear blond ale with a light, foamy head. it has a strong, crisp flavor with a slightly bitter finish. it’s very smooth, but there’s not a lot of flavor; the main attraction is the 10 percent abv. its served in a goblet with a tapered lip that preserves a one-inch ring of foam no matter how much beer you drink.

i went to Bruges for the medieval archecture, stayed for the food (great chocolate, too) and beer, and left because the place was just damn boring. i did meet some interesting people, though. two Mexicans, one a young high school graduate named Santiago and the other an older guy named Adrian, were great to hang out with, talk to, and share the isolate misery that is Bruges with. by the third day, we were reduced to playing Monopoly. in Belgium. several thousand miles from Montana. finally, thursday rolled around. train ride, bus ticket, hostel reservation.

next stop, Paris. talk about a change.

i drag my soaked bag and coat into my room. when i open the door, the smell of stale beer and cigarettes hits me like i’m entering a dive bar. a grizzled, pot-bellied man turns away from his magazine and introduces himself as Irish Jimmy. he has a thick accent, completing all his sentences with a racous laugh, and he’s clutching the remains of a six pack of cheap Dutch beer. like all Irishmen i’ve met, he’s incredibly friendly and is soon clapping me on the back and handing me a beer. i sit down at the little table in the middle of our room, and Irish Jimmy begins to talk. he can really talk, which is fine, because he is full of interesting stories. i’m happy to just sit back and ask the occasional question.

it turns out that Jimmy married a Dutch woman and moved away from the outskirts of Dublin a few years ago. he’s very proud of his wife and his child, Seamus, and shows me pictures of them with a huge smile on his face. we crack more beers. he tells me of dropping out of school at fourteen and starting what sounds like a fifteen-year beer, booze, and drug binge. starting first with clubs in Ireland, he moved to the continent and started clubbing seriously in the flashing lights and smoke covered dance halls of France, Belgium, and Holland. his smile never slips as he tells me about blowing most of his money “down his throat and up his nose.” but Jimmy had a talent for creating beats and noises, and finally got a grapple hold on his partying problem by becoming a DJ. he turns his iPod on and shows me his favorite mixes. dance music isn’t for me, but his created music is really good. he has a diverse collection; relaxed, trance-like songs and deep, rocking, bass-heavy tracks. once he fell in love with music, he started saving his money and bought a collection of music creation gear. he said it seemed like a better investment than drugs. Jimmy proudly tells me of the two most important moments in his life. the first was when he bought a new cellphone and threw away the old one full of drug dealers, hookers, and bookies phone numbers. the second was the first phrase of Dutch he ever spoke–to his father-in-law, asking his approval to marry his daughter.

Jimmy’s stories are great, but he’s fueled by alcohol, so we move to the hostel bar for a few more. he chats up the bartender in Dutch and gets us a free round. Jimmy was clearly blessed with a golden tongue. he’s not an educated man, but i’ve never considered that a measure of someone’s character. he brags about his dyslexia being a blessing. his life philosophy is sketched out in that short statement: the way words dance around on the page for him always gave Jimmy something to smile about. which i come to understand as an important aspect of Jimmy’s life, as his face darkens and he tells me about growing up during the Troubles. he says his father was a civil rights leader (“…one man, one vote, a fucking socialist youknowhatimean, ifyalike. HAhahaHA…”), a euphamism he uses for ex-IRA leader. he tells me about the day that English troops and police came and arrested his father; the old man was sick and couldn’t stand, so they beat him until he crawled out of bed. it’s all very dark stories, and we drink a few more beers.

eventually i turn him back to happy tales of his partying glory days, and we get rowdy. beer is only one euro, and it eventually takes it’s toll. after Jimmy tosses a beer glass at a local Dutchman who makes an obscene comment in Dutch, we are “kindly” asked to leave. that’s ok with me, i’ve grown weary of Holland. Den Haag proves to be a little more interesting, offering a view of the sea and a funky surfer’s hostel (Jorplace by the Sea), but i only stay one brief night and then leave for Brussels and Bruges. waffles and chocolate…