PICTURE FROM GOL SHOP....FACES W/ BLACK RECTANGLES
I don't clearly remember the dates so I'll sort of fudge 'em.
(BIOS) Who we are, what we're about.
We flew into London Gatwick, Our packs were the same size and shape,
17:15 Flight leaving BWI
17:25 I remember hammering the bugger into the overhead compartment and holding a few irate American tourists up. It was like trying to get a square peg into a round hole.
17:33 - I am still trying to stuff this f...... into the overhead compartment. The stewardess, (I'm informed they 'prefer to be called flight attendants') the stewardess asked to check it. B's to that.
17:35 - It is finished. Pheeew. I can't remember if me and miller are drinking by this point. I recall the flight back from Scotland on BA w/ Keith. Boy were we getting f.... up. It all started with a few Carlsburgs..I don't know how old he was , perhaps 16.. After a few we moved to liquor, this is where things started to turn to the dark side. After several SoCo's (define) we were getting a lil' rambuncous...after all we were crossing the Atlantic at 37,000ft. in a cylindrical aluminum tube soaring at 500mph. We started talking (shouting at) the passengers behind us...we were pretty ripped. we were laughing and spilling, good times me and Keith were having. Then a classic moment occured. I asked the stewardess for a few more SoCo's, she said she'd be right back...so another stewardess walks by and I ask him for a couple of SoCo's...so there i'm sitting when two stewardesses come running up from different ends of the plane with 3 Soco Bottles in each hand. They were kinda like..."oh I see..." My greedy grubby hands grabbed all six before they took them away. I don't remember much past that point...Pelican Brief came on as we passed out.
So anyway, we had a few Tetley bitters me and Mill. The trip took forever...Mill might've napped , I didn't I can't sleep in planes/cars/trains. So we get off the flight, when Mill says "Hey, lets take the BA blankets w/ us , they might come in handy". Cool. They were in fact quite handy.
Meet Geoff and Alex. Alex wearing Man U kit, cold and damp, Alex says ' he knew we'd be wearing shorts'. Walk to the car...White Cavalier, put bergens in the boot, get in, Geoff takes off his stereo's detachable Am/FM radio face, starts blaring this acid house/techno stuff. All very appealing after being up almost 24 hours and "hunglagged" hungover and jetlagged. So we're rolling thru London, a weekday I think, thru Croydon...we start feeling pretty sick by this point. We've got the windows down, driving thru the ghetto rush-hour morning traffic and no vehicles in the U.K. have catalytic converters. The exhaust fumes kinda get to you. We felt a lil' grim. So Miller's bsing w/ Geoff about the radio and I kinda tune out.
We get to Stevenage. A bit blurry. I think we end up going straight to 33 Webb Rise, stevenage. A council house Geoff and Cherry now own. A cool lil house. We get inside and see Geoff and Cherry, hugs, handshakes, kisses. So Cherry puts on the kettle...we're gonna chill out , rest a mo' and have tea. We go to the guest room, all this is free yipppeee I'm thinking, and we put down our bergens on the beds...well I think Miller sorta had a glorified air matress but no bother. We shuffle around with our packs, wash up a bit, go back downstairs.
Drink tea, our eyes are bloodshot and bleary. So Alex and Geoff say what do you want to do, they have off work. I suggest going out to downtown Stevenage to exchange some dollars into knicker (my real motives involved going down the pub to wet our whistle's, but Cherry was there) so Mill agrees and we go out, no packs on our backs.
Go down to a shopping centre, changing money at pathetic rates, as usual, the bird (a term Mill later masters) behind the counter is a bit of alright. Red hair I think, we were kinda making eyes then she ripped the shirt off my back, financially speaking. Put tongue back in mouth and left.
So there we are dead tired but rockin' inside, itching to eat and drink. Alex suggests fish n' chips, I second that emotion (motion) and down the chippy we go. After living in the U.S. so long, I'm dying for the works. Alex, Mill and Geoff get the standard, I go full blown, 2 pieces Fish, Chips, Mushy peas, and a Savaloy. Man it was good. Yuo know how sometimes thefood is so damn good, after you're starving. Times that by 10. So I'm scarfin' down the stuff, Alex and Geoff are pottering away munching, and I turn and see Miller examining the fish. I'm like "what the hell are you doin'?" he's like "look at the grease (short Miller laugh) what the F?" He's picking off the batter, eating a few morsels of cod and a chip every now and then, when I think he finally had enough and tosses the rest in the bin.
Now what? Sergeant decides it's time for the pub. I felt like Geoff was a lil' hesitant, it was about 9.30am on a tuesday?, Alex...well he couldn't care less and Miller...well he's always up for something. So we go down to an Elizabethan, lots of wood firplace, style pub. Alex gets the round? ( Things are about to get shady) We're sitting in the wooden dining area at a table, and I'm drinking a pint of bitter, Mill and Alex- lager and Geoff's got a diet coke. I realized at this point one of us was standing out. You can figure it out. Geoff I think doesn't drink like he used to (lush) 'cause he has stopped breathing in the past. My dad, Geoff, Uncle Geoff and Auntie Cherry were in their kitchen the morning my pa was leaving, having visited about a year before, Geoff was pretty drunk the night before...and he's standing in the kitchen smoking, when BAM! He's just passes out. He apparently stopped breathing for a while. My pa was saying he was thinking to himself "Christ...how do you do this CPR???". Anyway, Geoff sticks to Diet Coke and cigars these days.
So we're sitting there, get anoth round and another, then off we go again. I remember thinking it was strange that they don't tip the bartender...we would and he seemed dumbfounded. I was thinking later that I should have told him to take the tip and get his teeth straightened, but then that wouldn't have been funny.
So I think we went back to Geoff and Cherry's and crashed.
Early evening. We wake up shower, s..., shave? And then have dinner? Maybe Uncle Geoff went out and got us fried chicken?
Did we go out the first night, oh yeah. We met up with Geoff and Alex and one of their mates "Mr. Ceiling" He did the fancy plaster on ceilings..around fixtures etc. I noticed they were all wearing gold rings that had a half sovereign in the flashy part. Sovereigns were the old gold coins in Britain ...long since defunct. So we're warming up, pouring down pints, they're on lager, I'm on bitter, Geoff's on Diet Coke #4 puffing on cigars...We're having a few laughs, me and Mill are more sorta listening and sponging up the funny words/slang we're hearing. Mr. Ceiling keeps calling girls "birds". It's not really a new slang term but I think Miller had never heard it. He asks Ceiling "did you say birds?". Ceiling's like "yeah...you know birds, tarts, skirt". I think Mill made a mental note of the word, he kept thinking it was funny...doin' his lil Miller laugh...huh huh.
So, not much birds in the pub, we roll down to another pub in the high street?. We're there, curling pints, and it's really crowded. You can't help but spill on people and everyone, including us, is smoking. Mill was talking to some party chick..blondish as I recall. I was chatting with the lads, trying to fill my hollow legs with bitter. Miller's thing seemed to fizzle, as he came back over to us and kept drinking. This place was kinda driving me nuts...being claustrophobic and all. Eventually we left, it was pretty late, 'round midnight I think, and we went to a Stevenage techno club that's open until the wee hours.
We go in, was there a cover?, I think they padded us down. I think I was wearing a hat, as we'll see later. So we getting drinks..I'm drinking lager out of a club-supplied dixie cup. This feels a lil' moronic, go figure. Me and Mill kinda slip away from the others and start dancing/drinking with the girls on the dance floor. This is where is starts to get blurred, but more fun nevertheless....
So on with the tale, Mill starts dancing like he's Fred f Astaire. I'm kinda creeping around the floor, checking out the scenery. As the night goes on I meet some chick, she seems like a party chick, medium height, lil too much make-up, straight teeth, freckles...she was hot in a 6 pack sense and we're starting to dance/drink. As I recall, this is the first chick I've ever bought a drink for. Mill's dancing with a chick, nosering, cute in a alternative-heroin way. Pale, thin, alluring. Only problem he has is other guys are forming a circle around him, she's dancing with all of them. We took a break to refill our tanks and wander over to these guys who are wearing American sports team hats...except the teams were diffuse and odd...one had an old mesh A's hat (what's that about?) another had a Chargers hat. We were staring at their hat brims like ' what the f?'. they didn't put that nice curve into the bill/brim. So I start doing it for them...telling them 'In America if you want to look cool you work the brim'. They didn't seem to into the idea and as I can remember things got a lil' tense...we could care less.
So back on the floor, it's getting late, I started dancing with Miller's chick off and on, we were kissing etc., but I'm sure others were too, so no biggy. Mill did good this night. He stuck around there with his chick, and went back to her place, or her parent's place. He had a rough time trying to get home in the morning. Still good work by Mr. Vomit. Me and Alex left the club after Ceiling and Geoff, got hamburgers from an ice-cream van, they had eggs on them, then crossed train tracks thru prickers...the cable was on the ground, we jumped it, hoping it wasn't a live wire and then went home.
Next morning I think we went to London. We walked thru the town, didn't bother with the bus, and took the train. We paid about nine quid one way each...pretty steep. So we got there, at a main terminal, and went walking. I can't remember the mundane details. I remember we were by the Thames, we took shots of Tower Bridge etc. Then we went to the Monument for the Great Fire of London (1666). I'd been up before and couldn't be bothered with the stairs but Mill climbed it. I took his pic from the bottom. London gets real confusing but i think we went near the Tower of London, then down to Buckingham palace. We saw the changing of the guard and the cavalcade parade. I think we had a few pints, I had Guinness and went back to Stevenage.
The next morning same thing, paid and went to London. This time we dicked around all day taking pics, Trafalgar Sq. etc. The thing that sticks out is going to TESCO's. Here comes so more fun. We went to Tesco's and were looking for the cheapest, but most powerful bottle of wine they had. As we say "trying to get more bang for the buck". We selected a 1993 vintage, black cat on the label at my insistence...probably a Mosel. We grabbed (paid) for some eats and sat outside at an hour to dusk at an empty outside cafe. We were taking turns chugging. Back and forth the bottle went. It was warm and tasted pretty foul, but by bottle's end we were feeling the effects. We went back to Tesco's and bought another bottle of the same. In the store we needed to use the bogs (bathroom). We asked them where it was, and this supply clerk kid led us to it. It was like an epic saga. Through the back, down stairs, past the dockers and supply truck, thru another door, past security...we're thinking 'where the f is this guy taking us'...down a corridor to the bogs. Hooray we made it. We relieve ourselves, in the bogs, and followed the kid back to the front of the store. We paid for bottle #2, about two quid and left. This time we went back to the place we were sitting and they were closing for the night (dusk). We sat there anyway and shared the bottle. We were talking about the trip so far and how much we'd spent and I think we tried to play cards, but they kept blowing away...which is annoying. We finished that and were getting antsy for more. So where did we go? Tesco's. We bought bottle # 3 and decided to stroll thru the surrounding streets...this is where we started taking frivilous pictures. Some of our most famous works of photographic art were "Sarge with Baglady", the poignant "Miller with Two B....'s", "Sarge with the same Two B...'s", "Miller with Tongue Sticking Out" and the classic "Sarge giving two fingers to the camera". We did take pictures of us with Ethiopian models but I swear those didn't develop. We stumbling down the streets when we see a cop...no one in Britain calls them 'Bobbies". Our instincts, honed from years of playing evade the American fascsists (American Police), almost made us run like hell. But, in our state, we knew it wasn't illegal to walk around drinking wine, being loud so we talked (slurred words) with the cop and offered him a swig. He declined...he was on duty.
The third bottle was finished; Sarge and Miller were starting to get silly. We went back to Tesco's and needed to go to the bogs again. We decided we knew the way and just started walking thru Private and Unauthorized Entry doors. By the time we'd walked past security and had used the bogs, we were surrounded by not-at-all pleased security guards and the snot-nosed kid (the guide from Tesco's Bottle #2)
This is where the security turned into Mussolini's Black Shirts. They frog-marched us out to the front of the store, but allowed us, in a bizarre twist of fate, to purchase another bottle of Tesco's Mosel 1993. As I was leaving, I told the kid "what the f? we were just taking a p..." the kid said "taking a p... or taking the p..." For American reader's taking a p... is unecessary to explain, but taking the p... means to make fun of something (such as him or Tesco's).
By this point we were on the verge of missing the last train, due to leave King's Cross? at Midnight. We made a concious, healthy and informed decision to say 'bugger it' and stay out in London all night long. We were starting to lose our buzz, we ended up in an Irish pub briefly to keep sane. Guinness for me, don't recall what Mill had.
Things get hazy again, but I remember we we're talking to two chicks who wanted to hang out in a gay club. Mill seemed assured he was gonna hook up with the one, but the other was dyky. I wasn't into it, or the scene, and they went in, as we kept on walking. We stopped in some pub square, I was talking to a cute chick...16 years old, or 17. We were getting along good, but then her boy came over...he's was angry, but passive/aggressive. He didn't start anything, which was probably good for him. Me and Mill were in a 'throwin' down badass mood'. She gave me her phone # in front of him, but he didn't do S... Amazing. Anyway. We kept strolling along, we were in SoHo. A notorious seedy, red-light district. We didn't notice any h..'s, odd. We did however come across and nice African gentleman who was playing the bongos. Mill bought some of his wares for about ten knicker, and off we went.
Cool part. We went to a square to sit down and have a lot at the shirt he bought. Somehow we were talking to these Italians...the girls were real nice...a little greasy, lots of red lipstick but there were a few stunners. So this guy Daniel, Mill and me were all talking about our favorite pursuits and we took a few picks with them. He showed us some expert tips on how to wear shirt's like Mill had bought.
All of a sudden, this drunk American party girl chick starts shouting at us "The Boo Yaa tribe are here! We're hanging out with the Boo Yaa tribe". Knowing theie music from the Judgment Night soundtrack we ran over and started talking to them. It was cool meeting them. We could kinda relate. It was like we were kindred spirits in being 'American Hoods in Another Land'. We got pics with them, they turned out pretty cool.
From there we just wandered around in a complete, drink-induced haze. We took a few pics at dawn and went back to Stevenage. The ticket was about nine knicker each.
The next morning we said our goodbyes to Geoff and Cherry, although we knew we'd see them once we got back from the continent. I think Uncle Geoff drove us down to the station, our bergens filled to the brim, and we hopped on the train. At this point, we both decided we had had enough of paying nine quid each to go 15 miles or so. Basically we walked past the ticket office and just got onto the train. We were a lil' nervous but since we'd not been harassed prior to that we knew we were in the clear. It felt a bit like cutting school when you're in 9th grade. You kinda get a rush. Especially when your home free. So we got off the train and started some real hiking across town to Notting Hill. The Let's Go Europe described Notting Hill as a place to stay away from. We were like 'yeah right'...'we're tough' all that bravado crap young lions feel when they're on the prowl. So we're hiking thru the ghetto and we notice people staring at us, undoubtedly thinking "hey, who the f do they think they are' and/or 'see those kids...rob 'em.'. I better name for that book would've been "The Thieves Manual - Let's Go Get Those Backpacks". Rotting Pill is a better name for this area. Luckily we made it safely to the hovel (hostel) The place was a pig's sty but what do you expect for ten quoid a night. Anyway, the people were pretty much like us...bohemians. Or in our case Natty Bohemians.
Can't remember much of what we did for the rest of the day...but..we did go out to get dinner. I wanted fish n' chips again (typical). Mill was content with whatever was closer, that being KFC. I (being a hard ass) decided I needed fish n' chips. At this point I think Mill went back to the hostel , and I went gangbusters to find a chippie...after about a 1 1/2 mile I gave up. This was prompted by my meeting a few people on the street corner. One guy..from the U.S., a girl from Canada, and a girl from Australia. Before I knew it I was swigging out of the 1 litre bottle of Jim Beam with the ol' Mr. Pibb chaser. As fast as we could chug, we were f... pouring down that firewater. Before long, the other guy...names are complete blanks....said 'hey, let's go across the street and jump the fence into that park!'. I had to admire his thinking, it reminded me of the stuff my friends have always been into...being hoodlums. The fence was an old, thick stone wall..about 7 ft. high with barbed wire on top. Me and him got up there, held the wire down, got the girls up then down, then got ourselves down. Great! We're in this park at midnight or later. It had to be done. So we creeped thru the wooded area and came out at a magnificent lake. It was really cool...the house looked like a stately library or something, the ducks were still quacking, but it was pitch black out. We were sitting with the girls when they went for a quick walk. Me and the other guy were talking about our plans with the girls, wne all of a sudden they came back, saying they heard voices. We were drinking but still mildly cognizant. We thought we'd heard voices too...
At this point...out of the f....n blue we heard screams of "GET ON THE F....N' GROUND!" "DON'T F....N' MOVE, MOVE AND WE'LL SHOOT!' There was no time to run, and from all I could make out it looked like they had assault rifles etc. If we ran, we would have been dead. No questions asked. The next thing these guys (Army and Police) did was start a basic interrogation. While we were laying prone, girls wimpering in the background, we explained we were really sorry, we jumped a fence to drink discreetly, we had no idea what was happening..we're tourists...all that kind of BS...just hoping they weren't terrorists etc. They did have pronounced English accents. They padded us down..roughly..even checking around my s.... They finally gathered we were tourists on the drink and let us go. They told us to go the way we came. I couldn't resist asking the lead guy why they were so frantic at the sight of kids drinking, he had chilled out by this point, he said "Son, you set of 30-something motion sensors and alarms!" I asked "Why? Why do you monitor the area?" He didn't have to tell me I figured...then he said "Because you just broke into Princess Diana House". This explained their actions. There were about 30 guys with weapons we had to pass thru to get out, they didn't mess with us, only followed us. Apparently they had woken her up as a precaution. Wow. So that was that. I decided to go home, hooked up with the Austarlian to a minor degree, said my goodbyes...then pissed off out of the area!
By the time I got back to the hostel, Miller was still up shooting pool with Tori?, a Canadian. He asked what the hell had happened to me, I told him a few words, I was still drunk, made a Beeline to my bed and went to sleep.
The next morning I woke up and filled Miller in on the details. I think his night was more low key...he was hangin' out with that chick Tori. We checked out, or fled, the hostel and double-timed it back to Paddington? We caught the first train to Dover.
TRAIN TO DOVER
We found out what platform the train to Dover was leaving, skipped the ticket booth (a savings of about 25 quid each or $42) and got on the train. This didn't work out as well as the other one. We had never travelled this route. It was a busy one. Even worse we could see a conductor in the next cabin. What to do what to do. Although I'm not entirely clear on this one, I think we decided to act like dumb American college students, I would wait in the bathroom, while he would shuffle around for his tickets, tell the conductor I have them, and that I'd be right back...hoping he'd move on and forget. Believe it or not this actually worked. However we were pretty jumpy for the remainder of the trip. We put on our walkmans and listened to the sounds of Floyd and Rage.
DOVER:
After a brief stop in Canterbury we arrive in Dover early afternoon. We have the "Let's Go" book but as usual it's f....n useless 'cause half the places are full or don't exist anymore. We curse the editors and hike uphill to the town a few miles with our heavy-ass packs digging in our backs. Our packing skills were pretty lame...the heavy stuff on top etc. Rookies...I tell ya.
Mid Afternoon - We can't find anyplace. We keep walking thru residential areas, taking pictures of gargoyles on the chuch. This gets pretty old, pretty quick. Finally we see this old-timer gardening in what looks like a decrepid boarding house. I walk up to him. "Is this a bed and breakfast?", I ask.
" Yep", he says.
"how much a night?", I inquire.
"Well...ummm...ahhhhh...errrr...six pounds each.", he replies.
"And what do we get for the six pounds?", I ask him.
"Well, we could do you a breakfast, with toast.", he says.
(I was kinda being a 'stard at this point)
"Ooooh. Toast! Wow! This sounds great. Hey Miller we get toast here!", I say sarcastically.
"And an egg....some egg...each", the old-timer says.
"Oooooh! Some egg too! Great!", I say.
Anyway, after this not-at-all-witty exchange we decide to stay there for the night. The old-timer introduces himself as Peter, Miller introduces himself as Eric and I introduce myself as Rico.
We get up to the room, do a lil' unpacking, sorting s.... out. Then lickity-split down to buy wine before the shops close. We buy a couple of bottles of white vino, open one, grab a snack, and start pouring it down. At half-bottle we come across a selection of good old fashioned British bums. These filthy beggars are completely f......d up. There are the usual assortment of grimy, toothless mendicants who would beat the living daylights out of us for our wine, if they only had the energy and the strength. Unfortunately they try the sly approach, offering some of their stuff to us in exchange. It would be a low point in my life to admit I drank from the same bottle about ten bums had been swigging from, so I'll evade the issue by stating nothing. The same I'm sure goes for ol' Millhouse. We gave them about a third of a bottle and pressed on. Across the square we meet some skirts (ages:). I keep forgeting we were young then too. They seemed into the idea of going to a poorly-lit, wooded park area to drink and chat. As soon as we're there...it took about a miles walk...Mill and his girl are soon off exploring another part. My one keeps going on about, how bad she would feel if we kept things going further. I wasn't that pressed about it and for us the evening dissolved into a blur of drink and fumbling. Mill was off for a while. Mill gets back from having his leg over and we escort them back into town, going our own separate ways. Go to our small room, sleep.
Woke up relatively early. We decided we were gonna check out the castle in Dover, aptly named Dover Castle. It was apparently a communications bunker during the war, until the Germans invaded and took over Britain...So it's the morning and Mill goes downstairs for some reason and sees that the old couple have laid out their table nicely for their breakfast. The next thing we know, we're at the table eating scrambled eggs on toast with the old timer's wife standing in the room, endlessly filling our cups with tea. They even gave us the remote control to flip thru the channels. We were amazed they'd done all this for us...but then the English are pretty nice and all. After this I tried to take a shower. I had just finished shaving and there was this contraption in the tub that had two hoses connecting to one with a rickety shower head. It didn't work very well and the water by the time I used it was pretty damn cold. Oh well.
Late morning:
Went to the castle. As usual Mill and Sarge had spent a whole s...pot of money in London and were not in the mood to pay 10-15 quid to see the insides of the castle. We were trying to save a lil' by this point. So we decided to snoop around and deliberately enter areas that had signs saying..DANGER - KEEP OUT etc. The castle is on top of the cliffs of Dover and I remember we actually went to the edge, there was a two foot high stone wall...like that'll keep you from falling???...and looked over. It was one-helluva drop to the bottom. We threw trash and various sized rocks down towards the people and the houses.
Early Afternoon:
We decide to relax a lil'. Mill breaks out his shirt and we find a coke can. After a minor surgical procedure we mellow out. We smoked a couple Camel Lights and then went back on the proper side of the fence. All of a sudden, as if out of Hollywood, this Army chopper starts circling above us. Me and Mill don't seem to have much luck when we're trying to cool out. It kept hovering above as if they saw us cross the fence or something. It was really wierd and we were in strange, dissoriented states of minds. Finally it buzzed off and we, or at least I, could relax again. We took a few picks here and there. We entered beneath the castle through a deep cavern/tunnell that had been closed off for some time. It was kinda creepy, which made it even cooler to explore. We took a few pics then scurried out. Took a few more pics of the castle walls and the dried-up moat, then I think we headed to France.
Afternoon:
We got our gear together then yomped down to the P&O ferry terminal. The hovercraft looked really cool, but it was pretty expensive. Then we were really slick. We got a head's up about this and it worked...tickets to go to France were almost 20 quid for a non-return open-ended ticket. All the tourists were dropping 20 pound notes like they were going out of style, but not us. You see if you tell them you want a same day round-trip (24 hours in France) they only charge you one pound. We told them we would be back the next morning and paid the two quid for the both of us. That was cool and we rubbed this fact into the other passengers faces. We were pretty happy to get hooked up and after all...what were they gonna do if we didn't come back? Put out an APB? I don't f... think so.
We didn't puke on the ferry...the seas were unusually smooth that day. Played cards, sat on deck, enjoyed the sting of sea breeze and listened to our walkmans.
We get to France, it's the evening now. For some reason we walked from the port in Calais...I'm not calling it the Puex-de-Calais 'cause French is a BS language....so we walked for a few miles...this sucked....and finally made it to Calais. We were walking so we could exchange pounds or travellers into francs. I used my French a lil'. I asked these French old-timer "Ou est la Banque?" meaning Where's the bank? and he just looked at me dumbfounded. After repeating another two times, louder each time he said "ahhh", then he pointed down the street. It's not lie that the French are total and "complete" stards. No matter how well you speak the language, they still like you to feel like you're an invading German from the Summer of 1940. And we're the ones who bailed them out? Oh well.
We get to the bank and make the exchange. The rates always suck, but that's life. Then we have to hike to the train station...the response to "Ou est la Gare?" Where's the train station was met with another mute point. We were a lil' worn out when we started talking to a taxi cab driver...who as I can best remember drove us the rest of the way...it might've been free!
We get on the train, didn't pay 'cause Eurail covered France, Germany and Italy . The train didn't smell as bad as the one to Amsterdam. We lazed until we got to Lille. We were supposed to change trains but the 'TGV' was "complete"ly packed, standing room only, plus Eurail (the stards) didn't cover this type of train. We were pretty pissed off by this point. So now what do we do? It's late evening. We walk from the terminal to downtown Lilles. It is getting dark. We're marching thru the town square and all these angry French peasants, bikers, pickpockets and smackheads are staring at us. We wanted to find a place quick before we were fighting the scum of the earth for our backpacks and the dirty contents. Do you know what "complete" means? It means the hotel is full. A typical conversation went like this:
Mill: Can we get a room for the night?
Nightwatchman at Hotel: Nooo! Nooooo! Complete!
(Another 1 Star Hotel)
Mill: Hey, can we get a room for the night?
Nightwatchman at Hotel: NOO! COMPLETE!! NOOHH!
Just the way they would look at us will total disgust and say "Nooo" in that stupid f....n accent or the equalling annoying "COMPLETE!" was enogh to make us want to kill them. A bizarre mental note I made: All French NightClerks seem to be missing appendages. Many were missing fingers. The place is worth staying away from...something is not alright in Lilles!
Finally we find a 1 Star hotel, a lot more money that we wanted to pay, but then you bite the bullet. The owner of this Hotel was pretty damn cool in retrospect. We were in the lobby and it had a lot of Casablanca posters and old Hollywood scene pics around. The owner was obviously into America and seemed like a goodfella. He told us how much the room was...many francs. Then he took our passports, I guess so we wouldn't pull a runner. And the funny/cool thing was is that he kept referring to Eric as 'Monsieur Miller', and to a lesser extent called me 'Monsieur Sergeant'. So then, and this is what made the guy pretty cool, he motions over to these girls sitting in the ritzy dining room, like as if to say, hey look at those girls...go eat dinner with them. They were looking our way at this point and I guess he knew they were American. So we slid up to their table, asked where they were from (West Coast?) and their names. We introduced ourselves and sat with them. We ordered a bottle of red and me and ol' Mill split a pizza. We were mackin' at the table, we knew we were money. Sometimes you can just tell with skirts, if they're into partying or not. So we paid up, bought a few bottles of red, at exorbinant restaurant rates and went back to their hotle for a nightcap (well a lesson in how-to-play Three Man. We were playing Three Man and getting pretty ripped. Mill seemed to be doing well with his girl, and mine seemed to be digging me. Mill and his girl were on the floor playing sometype of wrestling game or something?, we were on the bed hooking up in a preliminary sense. I seem to remember saying leave them with this room and we'll go back to mine. When we got back to my chateau, the door was locked (approx. 2am). I rang the bell and the 50ish French Humphrey Bogart came down and let us in. He didn't seem to be to pleased to see I was coming in with a girl. Anyway, he kept silent and we went up to my room. Things went very smoothly at this point.
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In the morning after she had gone back to her room, Miller came back to our room full of smiles. We both had a good night of hunting it was agreed. Apparantly he had talked to both the girls, who were headed to Amsterdam this morning and told me that his girl liked him and my girl liked me and that we should skip Rome and go to the Netherlands with the girls. I kinda wanted to head to Rome but Mill kinda gave me a pep talk about it and we agreed. I don't think Mill knew that the day after hooking up I always get kinda sick of them.
Okay, we get on the train and this is where things begin suspect. We're potting along thru Belgium, thru Antwerp and these saccharin-sweet Hansel und Gretel candy houses and scenery when who comes up? The most evil odored, foul smelling French train conductor on this planet ever. We all literally thought we were gonna puke. I cannot describe to the reader just how malodorous this frog was. You simply had to be there. It smelled like he had never worn deodorant, sweated profusely and hadn't been introduced to TP. You can ask the girls and Mill for clarification. I feel sick discussing it.
"Mr. Stink" as will now refer to him, asked to see our tickets. The girls, wish I could remember their names, handed theirs over like pros. Leaving us to do the fake shuffling around, 'where are our tickets...I thought you had them' comedy bit. The conductor was not entertained, he just waited and filled the compartment with a near visible green acrid rotting-corpse stench. We screwed this up big time in retrospect. If we had tried the 'my friends in the bogs' excuse, we may have been in the clear. Well, we're a mess at times too. He just stood there, so we finally handed over our Eurail passes (they didn't cover Belgium let alone Holland) he staired at them, slagged us off in French, then got the 'Captain': like he's a pilot or something? And the captain, or glorified train conductor official told us in broken azzz English to get off the train at the next stop and pay for a ticket from Lilles to Amsterdam. Great. I think their was a fine involved 2000 francs in their devalued azzz currency. The train stopped, we went into the little station, followed by the French conductor geheime staat-polizei and paid. The train actually waited for us to do all this....they must really need money! We get back on and I go sit away from my girl and Mill and his bird. I was off reading my Sven Hassell book 'Court Martail' listening to tunes. Apparently 'my girl' kept asking Miller 'what's wrong with Dave?'. The answer is: I don't like you and wish to be rid off you. Poor ol' Mill liked his girl, and my lack of interaction with mine was probably not helping him out any, but then how else do you treat a scheme? I bs....d with an American dude for a while and told him that I went to Georgetown Univ. (This was during my 'not telling the truth to people' days), what fun those were. The guy sees my Georgetown hat and starts quizzing me about it. Usually I'm great a bs but this guy was pretty clued in, then he asked me Georgetown's zip code...I quickly said 21045 (Columbia, MD), he said no it isn't, the bluff failed, and I was effectively busted. I think he went to Georgetown. Wierd. I went back over to the guys and that's when we met "Hike". This kid was Dutch, 15yrs. old, and a complete stoner. He was in Belgium just messing around going back to Holland. He was insistent on us following him to a Gol bar.
Evening...The train stops at the Dutch border. S.....
****This bit is purple hazy...We are waiting for the train to go to Amsterdam but it's been about an hour and we haven't budged. Somehow we hear that the Dutch trains are on strike, so forget Amsterdam tonight. Hike, lil' chipper guy that he is, told us to follow him into town to a Gol Bar. What the hell did we have to lose? We were effectively stuck in Roosendaal for whoever knows how long, but I think Hike had designs on our women...the kid was a Dutch player.
We get to the bar. We shed our packs and me and Mill head to the back of the bar. There in the back room, is a woman (an overweight 80's rock n' roll throwback with tons of blush) and a safe (see picture). There was a menu on the wall, it said things like "Super Afghan, Thai, Northern Lights, Haze". The spellings were a little off but who cares right. So Mill, the Gol coniseur, selects an items off the menu and guilders are exchanged- I think we cashed some guilders as we were walking there, or we paid in greenbacks. So we go back to the table where the girls and Hike are sitting. Mill pulls out his purchase and begins to roll a cigarette. Within seconds Hike is showing us how the Dutch roll them. It was extremely phat. It looked like an ice cream cone, see the picture. We were sitting around smoking and decided it was time to get a round of beers. Oranjeboom seemed to be more popular in Holland that Heine's or Amstels. The bartender wouldn't serve the girls as I can recall though. He relayed to us that they were American girls and that, for obvious reasons, weren't gonna be able to handle their beer in the environment they were in. We assured him they wouldn't throw up...after all American girls, to their credit, can outdrink most European girls, except English, Scottish, Irish, Russian, or German girls of course. So there we were, taking color photographs and sharing a few laughs. It was a pretty phat moment. Hike left and we went off to find lodgings. I liked Roosendaal most on our trip.
We find a place, a cool room above a Dutch biker? bar. The rent was cheap and bartender seemed like a nice enough bloke. We went out for food, the girls may have been there with us. We ordered fries and before we could stop them, the cook had covered them in mayonnaise. We tried to cover them in tons of ketchup, but the blend to ketchup and mayo was pretty odd. Very late we went out with the girls and ended up sitting in a park. We were definately drinking. I think wine was involved. We walked past the train station and Miller and his girl were walking in front of me and Lisa? I happened to see Mill's girl reach out her hand for his hand, and saw them hold hands briefly. I decided to be a dick and started to laugh, I couldn't help it, and Miller pulled his hand away. It was a classic moment. We went home. Mill was getting sick I believe by this point.
The next day Millhouse aka "Mr. Vomit" was very ill. He must've had the flu, he wasn't into going out. I went out, wearing my Alonzo Mourning jersey (a total tourist) and went down to the market. The Dutch girls really are a good looking, healthy bunch. I really had fun taking in the sights, and I don't mean monuments etc. I went to the supermarket and bought beer, french bread and a block of butter. The cash register girl was flirtatious but I didn't have the stones to get her number etc.
Went back to the room. We ate. Showered and we started drinking. It was good of Mill to tough it out. I know he was feeling like S..., but he still wanted to go out and par-teee. We got done and brew and went downstairs to the bar for a few drinks. Shot the s... with the bartender about were to go that night. After getting recommendations (an American style bar) we paid up and went to the American bar....figuring we'd be money there, since we were the real thing...well at least Mill was, I'm an honorary American.
American style Bar (What a crock)
It had a jukebox. Whoop-te-f....-doo. And a bar. That was about the extent of it being American. The people there were pretty trendy, there were a few 'lookers'. We get to beers and get this...they pour them into these brandy glasses and half of the glass is foam. We were like 'what the f? fill 'em!', but the bartender said he couldn't, that's the way it's done in Holland. It wasn't cheap either. What c.... So we're having drink after drink and we're both pretty buzzed. We were talking to two blondes, cute in a mean way. They turned out to be cops. That was odd. The drunker we got the crazier we acted to them...(things get cloudy here). I seem to remember still shots of the night from this point on. I think Miller was trying to get the one to put handcuffs on him to see if he could get loose. We were in rare form, making ourselves laugh, they seemed less and less interested in us. At some point I took one of the shorter cops cigarettes, then another, gave Miller one, then 'jocked' the pack. We were ripped by this point and the shorter blond cop goes to get a cigarette and they're missing. They start getting bitchy with us, but we swear we haven't taken them. It was funny. Like a game to me. So as we're leaving, they wait for us to get outside and then they start again....b..h....b.....h...finally I'm like "look, you're cops, why don't you frisk us?". They both frisked me! Women have a sixth sense it seems, but alas they didn't check my 'naughty bits'. The moral to this story is, "jock it".
As we left the bar, and I'm puffing on my cigarettes we went in another bar, where we meet the friendliest Dutch couple ever. Ton and Tosh. If I've got the names straight, Tosh was the girl. She looked liked a docker from Liverpool. She looked pretty tough, was about 6 foot, 220 with a bit of a gut, wiry, bushy hair but very nice. Ton was a dirty old man, well he looked that way. About 5'6", and 1125lbs. Dark, unshaven and frail it looked like a sudden gust of wind would damage him irrepairably. He was cool though, they bought us beers and wanted us to tell them all about America. That got old and we tried to leave, but they wouldn't let us. Finally, Ton was leaving and wanted to buy us dinner. We didn't want them to do anymore, but we consented. We went into a glorified buthcher's shops and he ordered us deep fried sausages. The girl behind the counter was the big blonde you'll hear about later. So we're chomping on these sausages, but he wouldn't tell us what we were really eating. He said he'd tell us when we were done. We didn't want to insult the guy and they tasted pretty good, after a ton of beer anything does, so we ate them up.
Miller asked him what we had just eaten.
Ton begins motioning like he's milking a cow.
Lightbulb goes off.
"F....", I say...we just ate fried cow udders.
Remarkably, they seemed to give us a new strength and vigor so we thanked the lil' stard and went to the next bar.
This bar was rockin'. This was about ther most fun I remember having...all still in the tiny hamlet of Roosendaal, Netherlands. We go into this bar and see it's filled with smoke (everyone smokes in Europe), karoke singers are screeching loud off-key Beatles songs and there was a bartender...or his assistant that we'll call "bargimp". Bargimp is walking around the bar with a thick leather strap around his neck holding up a ten beer wide block of wood containing beers. This was cool. We took a few and he didn't seem to care if we paid. We kept this up for a while until we were out-of-control ripped. I started talking to this cute, thin, long hair in two braids girl. This bit is cool. It was her birthday and her folks...whom we were kissing in front of, seemed pretty into the whole thing. I was sitting next to her at her table, and it was great to hear the beer was free! Man that was cool. All the guys were p... drunk. The girls were pretty far gone, but still aware of their surroundings. Somehow me and Mill end up staggering to the karoke machine and decide on a Beatles song, that's about all they had, and started singing "I want to hold your hand". I thought we were doing a good job of it, and I think Mill thought the same, but the next day he told me people were covering their ears and shaking their heads.
We left the bar, I was walking with my girl Kirsten? and Miller is with this big, but cute blonde butcher chick. As we were walking back I noticed to strange things. Firstly, Miller was now riding past us on a bicycle (where the hell did that come from) and secondly...at 3am there were a few other people riding their bicycles, but would all stop for red lights, and there was no one coming. It was odd. They all seem into obeying the few laws they have in Holland. So me and Kirsten? get back to our room and we leave the lights off.
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Mr. Smooth
While this had been going on I found out from Miller the next day that he hadn't had much success with his girl "Helga". He told me that at one point she told him, in broken English, "you are scaring me." We woke up fairly early the next morning, feeling rough, and staggered down the town. We settled up with the bartender for the room and went down the station. We caught the train "Zug" to Amsterdam.
Amsterdam
We arrived and consulted our yellow rag aka "Let's Go Europe". It mentioned a few hostels, I forget the names, but when we were outside we could see charlottes wandering around. Most had good figures but their acne or pockmarks were covered by layers of foundation and blush. They were caked in make-up. We passed them by and some guy who worked for the hostel gave us a ride, with a few other backpackers to the hostel. We arrive, pay and go to our room. It had about six bunkbeds in a room the size of a kitchen. There were some real freaks in this place. One thing was either a male or a female...it was hard to tell. We put our packs in a locker and headed out to enjoy the city life. Things get a little convuluded here, but I remember we were walking around Amsterdam, and it must've just rained. We got a pizza at an outside cafe that was run by Italians. They had lots of Italian World Cup '94 banners etc. They kinda stood out 'cause everywhere else in Amsterdam was bedecked in orange. Orange is the color of the Dutch National Team. It was a cool time to be there, but we'd leave Holland just before the World Cup would begin. We asked the cops, a male and female, where something was. It's wierd that there are more female, armed? cops in Holland than male cops. Their a lot like American male cops, bossy, short, except they were blondes, athletic and sometimes cute. It was all very strange.
You can get away with a lot in the Netherlands, but don't push too far.
As we're walking through the seedier parts of the city we were getting hit up by every Middle-Eastern pimp and pusher, I think most were Morrocan or Surinese (people from Surinam I guess). Everyone and their mother was trying to sell us street h.... We weren't down with that cra..
TIP: When in Holland, make your purchases from small, reputable Gol shops.
You're better off in the smaller towns or suburbs...everything's cleaner.
Another bizarre point. You're walking down the quaint streets next to dykes with riverboat tours on your left and to your right; there are woman in the shop windows. They looked so sad. Or drugged out- or both. Most were unpleasant to look out, as they were quite large. I felt like we were shopping for a dog in a pet store at the mall...it's the same idea.
The barkers are all trying to lure you into their 'establishments' to joy and pleasure, but we weren't interested in paying for something that is free with a lil' bit off work. This one guy said "Hey Americans....come in here for fun!". We kept walking and he said "ah...Americans...you don't like s.....". I turned and said "No son, we don't like paying for it!". Amsterdam gets old after a while. Everyone is in your face for one thing or another. We went back to our hostel and sat at the bar to drown own brains. I ordered a 16oz. pint of OJ. I watched him squeeze the oranges, damn it was good. It was six bucks American but I needed Vitamin C bad, as my rickets and scurvy were acting up again. Well not really.
I don't think we went out again that night. I think Mill was still sick (strep) and we made a healthy decision to start smoking again. We also had a can of coke and sat on the stairs and just puffed away. People would come up the stairs and it was great to feel like we were in the clear.
After goofing around the hostel looking for things to do, we went back to our room and met to American girls. One was Wendy, the other Lisa?. They were west-coasters and were on their way back from Greece and were about to fly back stateside. We played cards with them and drank together for the remainder of the night. They were both pretty cute but we didn't seem to really try and hook up. They seemed cool, but we may have been too worn out to bother putting in the work. They wrote down places to go and see in Greece and gave us a bunch of leftover tickets and cra.. for the ferries etc. We had a good time just chatting with them. Then we all went to bed. Mill had the top bunk- I had the bottom bunk. The next morning Miller asked me if I hooked up with Wendy? I said no...why? He said I was tossing and turning so much that he thought I had her in my bunk. Hindsight is 20-20...
Headed to Deutschland:
Now what? We might've bought a ticket to Koeln (Cologne), 'cause once we were in Germany, the train would be free. We wrote postcards from Holland to people and just checked out the scenery on the way to Koeln. We get there but the next train to Heidelburg doesn't leave for a couple of hours. We start wandering around the city, not venturing out to far, but we checked out Koeln Cathedral, pretty cool but covered in grime. We changed a few bucks into DM's and got some wierd food at a kiosk. The girls were real nice behind the counter. Made mental note to work in the same kiosk one summer. The food was foul to me. I believe Miller liked it, he's German, but I thought it tasted like S... I guess it was the opposite of the fish n' chips story in Stevenage. I had a few bites and gave the rest to him. It was potato/onion deep fired cake...real nourishing I'm sure).
We get back on the train and go thru a few urban areas 'til the two of us get to Heidelburg. We got there the night of the opening World Cup game GERMANY vs. BOLIVIA. It was evening, but still light out. Mr. Vomit and the newly-christened Mr. Smooth accessed the "Let's Go Nowhere" and double-timed with packs to each hostel mentioned. The first one was full, the second one was, get this, a f....n convent. The nun in charge, Mother Superior Kraut, was like 'no, no stay here'. You can imagine her fears at having two hard-drinkin' players staying with the unwordly young nuns. The one thing we wouldn't have done is be good boys. As we left I kept letting my mind wander as to what might've been. Staying at the convent would have topped Roosendaal for me. Damn. (An interesting sidenote: In the old days if a nun broke her vow of chastity, she was bricked up in a room inside the convent to asphxiate, starve or die of thirst. They still find skeletons in boarded up old rooms in convents!) Back to matters at hand we were getting itchy trigger figures and the hunt to find lodgings has f.....n failed. Shii...e No bother. We go down the high street, lots swank shops, bennetton and such. We finally get to a Hard Rock Cafe - Heidelburg, if there is such a thing. We sit outside at the tables and put the bergens to our sides. The game comes on. I think we were both rooting for the underdog...Bolivia, I know I was, I hate the f.....n German team. (Big England rivals) This didn't make us too popular, in fact I'm sure we were seen a s....stirrers. Great, we like to mix things up in foreign lands! We are complete stards. So we're pulling for the Bolivians but with a few minutes left the inevitable occurs (like Italy vs. Nigeria in Florence) and the krauts score. The place erupted, but in a way I was kinda happy for them. The Germans are tight-azzz but pretty cool.
We left the bar and needed a place to sleep. We stopped by a bus stop and there were wanted posters everywhere. This middle-aged German bloke decided to rob the local bank with a pistol. They had a picture of him leaving the bank, a composite and a dummy wearing clothes that matched his. It was retarded. This guy must've got busted. There was so much effort to catch him and all. Wierd. We took a poster for a scrapbook. I carried around the picture of him in my wallet for a while, telling people 'this is what my dad looks like'.
We're completely f.....d for a room to stay in. We hover around the train depot and Miller, in typical fashion, starts trying to procure a means of free travel. In short, he started trying to 'borrow' a few bicycles so we wouldn't have to hump all the gear up to the castle. We must've checked 200+ bikes and every single one was locked down. The Germans are so exact and methodical. It's a wonder that there is crime in Germany period. So after that failed attempt at transport we knuckle down and head up to the castle. It was on top of the hill overlooking town. It may have been a mountain. God it was a long hike. The longest on the trip I'm sure. Still we hiked and hiked, uphill all the way, until we'd had enough and started trying to hitch a ride. Cars came and went but one finally stopped. The guy said he'd drive us to the top of the hill and drop us off. Cool. We asked him if he knew Tina? And he did. He described her and all. Sadly, Tina was back in the U.S. so we couldn't stay with her. So we get to the top and he lets us out. We see these German thugs with two tallboys in each hand in the parking lot. It was heavily wooded and secluded. I thought our chances of getting jumped about 50%. We walked passed them. I think they were amazed to see us, startled even. But they didn't do or say anything. We walked down the the castle grounds, found a flat, grassy area and decided to crash there. We used our packs as pillows and wrapped ourselves in our British Airways blankets.
I thought we were gonna get "rolled" (jumped, stole in the face and robbed) for our s.... so I had the clever idea of going to sleep with my knife in my hand. That way if those drunk thugs tried to mess, one was getting a perforation. You gots to proteck yo neck dig? Anyway, I wake up in the morning and my hand was real tight, like rigor had set in, I was still holding my knife tightly in my hand. I was glad I didn't have the "stab someone in your sleep" dream that we all have from time-to-time.
We woke up 'cause people were walking their dogs at six in the morning, the dogs would come by and sniff us. We got up, lots of aches and pains, and ventured down to the town. Downhill hiking is a breeze.
TIP: Hitch a ride on the way up, but downhill hiking is a breeze.
We went in a coffee shop, there were a few old timers and stalwart drinkers drinking bier at 7am. Mill had a coffee and I habe ein Bier getrunken. We caught the autobus down to the station and headed to Milan.
SWITZERLAND
We were riding on the train coolin' out (reading, walkmans) and as our Eurail covered Germany and Italy all we had to do is get thru Switzerland with no hastles and everything would be completely icebox. Going through Switzerland was the most fantastic scenery I have ever scene. We were in a constant state of awe weaving through the mountains, past the Alps, high alpine pastures, chalets and rivers. Man it was bad. We stopped in Zurich, but didn't go off the train. The bathrooms on the train are pretty cool. Cramped and all but cool to take a digger and watch the scenery whizz by. We went through a lot of tunnels bored into the mountainsides. We timed a few. One, no lie, took 20 minutes. In Zurich this middle-aged Italian lady came into the compartment in which Sarge and Miller were sitting. There were now three of us in a six person compartment, with the door shut. I don't think she liked the idea of sitting with us. She didn't smile or make any sounds as Miller stabb.....errrr....wait a minute....(I would like to point out that that was a joke)...she just sat there staring at us, but when we looked at her, she looked away fast like she wasn't staring. The funny bit was that every time we neared a tunnel, just as we reached it and it was starting to get real dark, she would grab her purse in a hurry and put it on our lap. This was amusing to me. Miller saw it too. Everytime she would grab her purse. I might add that we did look pretty scraggly. This b...h was funny. As if we'd attack her...that's not like us.
CARBONARI!
Finally we reach the Italian border. We were asleep in the compartment, the broad was gone and it was dark out. The Italian Carbonari (a cross between Italian cops and Adiss) nearly booted the door off the hinges to our lil' comparment and the two of them with submachine guns cocked started shouting "PASSAPORTA!, PASSAPORTA!". F.... What a Goddamn way to wake up. It was like going back to the 1940's. These guys were one step away from Mazzini's Young Italy. God. Me and Mill are shuffling through our packs at at 1,000mph trying to find our Eurail passes and passports, finally we hand them over, they stare at them, then us, throw them back at us and move on to harrass other young backpackers. These guys were uptight. Someone needed to loosen their hats so some steam could escape. I think Mill was probably concerned about what was in his 35mm canister...
TIP: Keep Eurail and Passports very handy!
MILAN
Man that sucked. The train starts rolling again and we reach Milan. We get out of the station and walk across a small park filling with bums....and smackheads. We look down and there are syringes sprinkled all over the ground. Great! We're standing in the middle of Milan's 'Junkie Park'. We weren't wearing sandals- which is of some relief. A special 'you f.....n stards' goes out to "Let's Go Europe" for pointing that one out. I'm starting to believe "Let's Go Europe" was written by a poor farm boy in Nebraska...who had never been to Europe. Whatta a wanka.
Now what? We get some lira and make our first purchase, a bottle. For some reason we stash it in a tree. I don't know why we did this. We went back to the tree, grab the bottle and start drinking. What's in the bottle? F... if I know. We wander thru the streets. Did we stay there for the night? At a pension? I'm not sure. One thing we tried to do, is go see "The Last Supper" by DaVinci? Ironically it was at a Church (santa Maria or something) and there was a convent attached. We didn't get to go in that one either. Marched back to the train station.
ROME
I guess we left Milan. Consulted "Let's Go..." and caught a cab to the pension. They said it was a long, long walk. We got there and gave up our passports and we had to pay in advance (guess they'd been burned by pesky Brits and Yanks before) and got a room. These places were cra... on the outside but the rooms were pretty large so that was cool.
TIP: Be a European when you're there- don't shower. It's a headache.
We max and relax. The pensions keep running into each other. There was one where we met an American who was a smoker. We hung out with him for 20 minutes. We didn't do any sightseeing in Rome. We're not into the tourist S..., we like the seedy underbelly of these cities. Got back to the station, washed up in the bathrooms (Eurostyle) washed our hair in the sink, shaved etc. Then got on a small train to Pompeii. This is where we meet our new backpacking buddies. Three guys, forgotten all their real names, but they were in a fraternity at Illinois and had all just graduated. The one dude had some Italian that was better than mine so we were better off. They all had their packs on and we talked about the adventures we'd had, birds we'd pulled, and bars we'd frequented. They basically joined our group until we left Greece.
POMPEII
Man, this was cool. Well worth the visit. We locked up our packs at the station and then exchanged money with the Cimino crime family. The rates were fantastic.
TIP: Skip banks and cambios in Italy, exchange travellers checks with the old mob guys. Great rates!
You get a warm feeling having just done business with the mob....at least I did. It was a thrill. So we get to the gate to enter Pompeii (a Roman town wiped out by the volcanic eruption of Vesuvius 45AD?) and it's about 5000 lira to get in. Don't worry that's about $4. So with cameras in hand we go off trapsing through the place with abandon. Our new buddies were a lot like us. We quickly tired of the guided tour and left the group one by one. It was like a military operation. You weren't allowed to touch the walls etc., so we'd jump on them, and drop to the other side, as chunks of wall would fall down. One by one we all ran, ducked, leaped the wall then hid 'til we were all together. That was fun. So we started exploring all on our lonesome, there were murals, paintings on the insides of houses almost 2000 years old and mosiacs. Man, it was dope. The history and all. We start roaming the roman ruins (alliteration) and this guy who was a guard there let us check out a locked area...pretty nice pic on the wall, we all felt obliged to take a pic.
By far the dopest part was the Roman Ampitheatre. We knew that that was where Pink Floyd filmed Live in Pompeii so for us the place took on a surreal, religious tone. We were throwing a football around inside the arena. Crazy to think they actually threw people to the lions in here and sometimes flooded it and had mock sea battles. The dungeons were cool. We didn't see too many bodies covered in plaster, but it was cool to see a few of 'em.
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NAPLES
We got here from Pompeii same day and there was about a four hour lay-over until we could get a train to Brindisi (the port city to Corfu). Napoli was real cool. First thing we did is go to a general store to buy wine. You could get a gallon for about 1500 lira (a buck). You'd think they'd be more winos here. We all got bottles, most had white, I was on red. Walking through the s....ier sides of Naples we saw a lot of street kids, real poor, playing soccer and being crazy. We sorta adopted them for a couple of hours. I felt like their rich older brother. These kids had it rough, but they were happy. They wanted something from us, they wanted to trade their shirts (size 8 year old) for my Mourning jersey. I didn't like that trade. Then they wanted my Georgetown hat. Couldn't part with that either. These kids really looked up to us. When we pointed and called out at these two cute chicks on a moped, they are ran over there, swarmed their moped and wouldn't let them leave. The girls were shouting at them, then shouted at us to them to leave them alone, we waved them on, and the kids chilled out. I felt like a Roman Emperor and these were our praetorian guards.
TIP: When you see broke kids who look up to you, hook 'em up with cigarettes, sips, or some cash.
They'll never forget.
TRAIN TO BRINDISI
We took the night train to Brindisi. It felt good to be off your feet...
[SNIP]