Europe Diary Week Uno

TOUCHING DOWN

Flying never feels real to me. For the first time, instead of feeling superior, looking down on all the people, cars and buildings slowly shrinking, I felt small. I felt like a spec in the eye of God. Nothing.

I think it was the sleep deprivation. Sure, we’ll blame that. I had two hours before arriving at the airport at 4 a.m. and I can never sleep on planes. I guess that adds to the surrealism. Without sleep, the world becomes white static, I drift through the day like molasses and I feel mummified. Without some kind of upper, caffeine, nicotine, what have you, I can’t function at all.



Due to a weather delay, the connection from New York to Brussels took even longer. I sat upright the whole time, zoning out on some censored version The World is Not Enough, occasionally scrolling on my iPod to listen to music so muted it sounded alien.

Because I didn’t have a visa, I got stopped by border control and taken into a dark, crowded backroom. I was chewing my fingernails to a pulp but the more my stomach filled with clippings, the more I was convinced I was on deathrow. Belgium let me in anyway, thankfully, but if it were America I’d likely wind up in Guantanamo.



LOSING IT, LOSING IT, LOSING IT

I missed my flight, but the airline gave me a complimentary coupon for the food court and booked me a later flight into Amsterdam. I used the coupon on beer, nice frothy Belgium beer.

Understandably, I found my gate and passed out on the seat. I slept for less than an hour before I woke up with a jolt and realized I had missed my flight by ten minutes. I was right fucking there! A blind old lady wouldn’t do something so boneheaded.

I ran thru the airport, cursing enough to shame Ozzy Osbourne. There were no more flights to Amsterdam that day and obviously I wasn’t going to spend another sleepless night in a country that didn’t want me around.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop looking like a lost, disheveled, ugly American. I navigated around a train station and was back on track. It was 4 in the afternoon, a full 36 hours since I’d been in Arizona, sleeping uncomfortably on my couch.

The train was filled with commuters giving me suspicious looks and I tried not to sleep again, lest I miss my junction again and wound up in Denmark. I lost that fight until a ticket master woke me up and informed me I was in first class. So I went to coach and didn’t rest again.



AMSTERDAM WILL NEVER FORGIVE ME

Once at Schipol, Amsterdam’s airport, I tried to locate my luggage. Even after an hour of waiting in line and talking to a receptionist, there was no luck. They said they’d mail me my bag, which had all my clothes and toiletries in it, if they found it. Unfortunately, I didn’t know my address.

More swearing as I hopped a bus without paying which dropped me off in the southside of the city. I found my hostel, Hans Brinker, recommended to me by VICE Magazine, and it was better than any ritzy hotel I’ve ever stayed in. There was a bar in the lobby and another bar downstairs in the “disco lounge” which had a glass cube room with a stripper pole in the center.

Even if the rooms were just bunkbeds, they accommodated well. The lockers were busted, so I worried about losing everything else I had. The stress was surmounting, flooding my head like a jelly filling, but of course I was lighthearted about the fact that I was in one of the coolest cities in one of the coolest countries in the world.

I needed a drink. Yes, I perused a coffeeshop first, which had excellent bud for only 10 euro. Then I discovered a whiskey bar with some of the finest drink I’ve ever experienced. I still don’t know what the bar tender gave me, but it came from a barrel. Classic.

A tweeked out man persistently tried to sell me marijuana and the streets were crowded with fucked up people. Not like an American bar scene, everyone was jovial and good-natured, but I decided to call it a night.

I slept like a baby – if you gave one morphine, I mean. I woke up just in time for checkout, had a coffee and then puked all over the bathroom and my jeans right before leaving. Call it a tip.



DROWNING IN BREDA’S STREETS

I was reeking of body odor, beer, puke most of all and had no clothes to change. I hopped another train to Breda and stayed with a friend for a couple of days while I waited for my landlady to return from Spain. She left without telling me so I couldn’t even move in or call the airport to mail my luggage.

This was beginning to sound like a really bad Judd Apatow movie. I didn’t have a cell phone yet, of course my power converter was in my baggage so I had zero laptop battery and I smelled like what G.G. Allin must of smelt like when they found his corpse in the gutter.

Three days later, I had orientation, so I got to meet some people, mostly international students like me. I’m the only American in my department and my nationality sends off the most negative vibes. However, everyone in Breda is very friendly and so I was invited to a huge party at a bar called Speeltuin.

First, I got set up with a cheap, durable bike and a cell phone. By now I was pretty acquainted with the city, except the area where I was going to live. It had been raining all week, but tonight was the worst of it. It felt like twenty monsoons at once, I had to bike three miles in it, clutching my backpack and praying my laptop didn’t short circuit.

My landlady let me in, me soaking like a homeless cat and showed me my room. It’s spacious, like a writer’s study. The only problem is she sleeps and rises early, like it makes her healthy, wealthy and wise or some shit, so I must be home at 11 each night or I have to find a place to crash. That’s going to be a strain on my friends, none of whom I’m even close to at this point.

I left for the Speeltuin, biking in the rain again. Soon I was surrounded by new (and a couple old) friends. I had shot after shot of something called Hot Shot, which tastes like a mouthful of Hot Tamales candy. Then, I don’t remember so much. See, I woke up in a park on a bus bench not even a block away from my apartment. My bike was gone. I hadn’t even had it 12 hours. I don’t remember how I lost it or how I got to the park.

I was soaked to the bone, my socks blue and purple, absorbing all the dyes in my now ruined shoes. I dripped from store to store buying socks and a shitty, used bike that was pulled from the canal and crusted with rust.

I biked home, crashed and slept thru the second day of orientation. And like an idiot, I decided to drink again. That night ended in vomit and shit everywhere and waking up to a choir outside singing the most annoying Dutch songs invented. At least that night I wasn’t alone – a Finnish kid was puking with me.

That’s where this story ends so far. It’s been exactly one week since I left the states and it’s been nothing but chaos. I did get my suitcase today and everything seems to be looking up. I took a walk through the park across from my house and the sun was coming out for the first time since I arrived, soaking the towering aspens with green and gold. I am almost convinced I died in my sleep that fateful night in the park and arrived in Heaven. I don’t remember booking a flight, but flying never seems real to me.

If I can send a letter back to Earth, this is it. I hope this finds you well.