Budapest

In what has come as a great surprise to me, and no doubt the rest, it turns out there is quantifiable evidence that I am NOT the smartest person in the history of ever. In fact, apparently, it turns out I am completely average. I would have bet on the Bills winning the Super Bowl before me getting a better grade in Legal Writing than Contracts (and I didn't get a great grade in Legal Writing). Well, as they say, "When at first you don't succeed, lower your standards." According to the law school, I should be thrilled to string together polysyllabic words without drooling. Which I am...

For those who have stayed with me so far, I feel now is time for clarification. I am by no means a pessimist; indeed, far from it. I'm actually a cynic. According to my father, who with his quantifiable proof (2 PhDs) might be the smartest person in the history of ever now that my title is up for grabs, a cynic is a romantic who knows the world's going to let him down. That pretty much sums me up. I certainly hope for the best, even when I prepare for the worst.

The following snippet, from the poem I posted at the end of each of my exams (average...pshaw!), hits the nail on the head:

From "Terrence, This Is Stupid Stuff" by A.E. Houseman

Therefore, while the world has still

much good, but much less good than ill,

and while the sun and moon endure

luck's a chance but trouble's sure,

I'd face it as a wise man would

and train for ill and not for good.

So, yes, I have learned to treat bad times as adventures instead of misfortunes, but that doesn't really mean that I therefore reject pleasures or happy times, no matter my bombastic claims to the contrary. I always hope to have a good time and, since I prepare to meet the adversity that chance throws my way, I generally do so.

All that being said, pleasant times and happiness do not a good story make, as stated before, so rest assured that this most unreliable narrator will continue in his quest to entertain, even if it means playing the part of the carmudgeon. Therefore...

I cut Vienna short because I didn`t want to ruin my perfect experience and I discovered I'm running a bit tight on time as far as getting to Rome on Christmas Eve day. One zesty jaunt from the hostel, which I now believe it was, to the train station later, and I was off to Budapest.

I realized I was live without a net since I speak ZERO hungarian. No polite words, no way to say I don't speak Hungarian, no way to order beer. Pointing, grunting and smiling will have to do. When the Hungarian border patrol asked to see my passport, I put two and two together and got it out, but I also accidently grabbed a hundred euro bill when I did so (both being in my necklace pouch) and thus looked like I was trying to bribe him. He looked at me very oddly as I snatched back the money and turned red.

Fortunately, right as we were getting into the station a hostel representative, who rides the last segment of trains into the city to catch tourists, offered to get me a cheap place to stay. Feeling very wary because of my inability to understand anything and being so dependent, I agreed to follow him, but made sure to tuck a credit card where I hoped they wouldn't find it when I got mugged. I also got the knife ready.

He was on the level, it appeared, as he got me a shuttle to the hostel. The drive was pleasantly terrifying as the young teenage driver drove in the tram lanes, swerved into oncoming traffic from time to time, and cut off great swaths of traffic at a time. I've never seen anyone else turn right when they were in the outermost lane of a four lane road. He's missing his calling as a getaway driver. Or maybe that's his day job.

As for the city, I did the requisite hiking around and even took a tour boat ride on the Danube. It was all pretty standard sightseeing, to be honest, and thus not worthy of mention, save for my experience at the St. Stephen's Basilica.

It didn't quite register when I first entered that there was singing. In fact, it was only when the singing stopped did I realize it had been there. That is not to say that it was run of the mill, not by any means. It had just seemed so appropriate that I couldn't fathom being there without it. It turned out I was there for a rehearsal of a girls choir who apparently would be making a performance for Christmas. Their choirmaster had only stopped momentarily to berate them and they started once more.

As their angelic voices strove with each other, complementing, rising, softening, soaring, reverberating in all the nooks, crannies, and alcoves of the basilica, I stood rapt. The beauty of that moment was such that I was nearly driven to tears. I assure you that is not hyperbole. Words cannot express how powerful it was. It was easily the strongest emotional, as well as religious, experience I've had in years.

But on to ligher matters...

Last night, I had an amusing back and forth with a waiter. I ordered a Budweiser Budvar, the famous Czech beer. He condescendingly informed me, "It's not the American one."

"No [poop]. This one tastes good."

Apparently, my penchant for sleeping in my tidy-whities sent the vast majority of my hostel mates fleeing into other rooms, which was my goal from the start. Except for one Mexican. I slept with one eye open and the knife under the pillow.

This morning, he struck up a conversation with me as I was packing out. I mangled the Spanish language a bit, explaining to him that I tend to jumble up the fragments of the Spanish, Italian, French, and Latin I know into the indecipherable language of Splatalench. He tried to coax me on a bit with the Spanish and I gamely tried, but to middling success. It was only as I went to leave that he geared it up an extra level.

I swear he asked me where the prostitutes where and how much they cost, as I know I heard some variation of the word prostitute and "cuenta". When I said, "Que?" and he said whatever it was again even faster, that pretty much sealed it. "Um...No se?" He came over and shook my hand as I left, which I thought was a mighty decent thing for him to do for a man who wouldn't spill the beans on hookers.

Vienna

As some prefer what I consider to be castrated writing, I shall now summarize Vienna in only 17 syllables.

Went to Vienna.

I had a wonderful time.

Can you believe it?

Also, I don't wish to trespass to chattels (which is what I discovered "spam" is this semester), so if these emails and the replies from the peanut gallery are too much, let me know and I'll pull you off the list (and rest assured, I most certainly won't be offended...except if it's from you, Mom and Dad).

For the rest of you who might care to hear the overblown story:

First I must thank the inestimable David T----, who caught an egregious typo in one of the previous emails. The Parthenon in Athens is not a dome; the Pantheon in Rome is. I was concentrating a bit too hard on these strange German keyboards and didn't catch it. Also, David informed me that the Pantheon was surpassed by the Duomo in Florence in 1440, though there's some contention as to that fact (at least on what I could find on so reliable a source of information as the Internet). But, without further ado...

I got off the train in Vienna and headed into town. Different country, same bleak weather; I love it. The hostel is called "Believe It or Not Hostel." I hope I don't wake up in the middle of the night with a knife to my throat and a husky voice saying, "NOT!"

I ditched the bags and set out for the heart of Vienna, the old town, and was delighted to discover that the Viennese are classy people, what with the "Peep Show!" club and the dirty video store, whose sidewalk window proudly displayed the uncensored cover to "Anal Adventures", along with several items that even I, with my warped, soldier perversity, couldn't figure out how they could possibly be used on the human body. Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.

I stopped to eat at a restaurant that specializes in schnitzels as I'd only had pork for every meal since I'd arrived in Europe. Before I spoke, the waitress handed me an English menu and sat me down. When she came back, she asked me what I wanted to drink. I responded with a perfect Bavarian accent, "Haben sie dunkelweizen?" She took a step back and gasped, as though the family poodle had spoken. She regained her composure and came back shortly with my dark, wheat nectar. As for the meal, I guessed and ended up getting a schnitzel (deep-fried pork loin) covered in ham and cheese to go along with deep fried potatoes. At the rate I'm going with vitamins and vegetable consumption, I'll have scurvy in the next few weeks.

I carried the bowling ball of food in my gut as I explored the city. Vienna is flat-out gorgeous. From the museums (which I didn't go inside...all museumed out for a few days), to the palaces, to the parliament, to the rathaus (city hall), every building was larger than life and exquisite. In front of the rathaus was a Christkindlmarkt that put the one in Berlin to shame, and when I entered the rathaus, there were all sorts of arts and crafts classes for children being held, where they learned to make cookies and paint ornaments. As there were many hundreds, if not over a thousand, small children screaming in one place, I quickly got the hell out.

I stopped by the Freud Museum but didn't go in. I wonder how many first-year psych majors would love to go there. On a completely different note, why are psych majors usually crazy as hell? Maybe the population as a whole is and I just notice them because of the hypocrisy, like dissolute divinity majors.

After stopping off to see Roman ruins and inspecting the perfectly nice but forgettable Dom, I made my way to the Karlskirche (St. Charles Church). I've never seen a church with triumphal columns in the manner of Trajan or Napoleon before, but that wasn't the remarkable part about the church. It was undergoing extensive renovations to the dome frescoes and had scaffolding up 100 feet above. There was an elevator for tourists and so up I went.

Arriving at the rickety platform, I grabbed a rail and looked down. Looking down that far inside a building makes a strange, strange feeling. On that platform was another smaller scaffolding that rose another 40-50 feet to the cupola. Up I went again, taking my time to admire the massive frescoes and to ponder how exactly the then-75y.o. (now long dead) artist managed to make that in five years (right as he finished he died). From up in the cuppola, the view wasn't spectacular, but that was definitely a case where it was the journey, not the destination.

As it was dark, I went back to the rathaus to soak in the ambience of the market and I was mightily impressed by the lighting. During the day, I hadn't noticed, but, up in the massive leafless trees on either side of the market and in front of the rathaus, all sorts of ornamental lights in the shapes of hearts, stars, candy canes, etc. had been hung up. At night, the skeletons of the trees couldn't be seen, just the lights, and so they looked like they were floating in place. Those, along with the white and blue lights used to accentuate the 16th century gothic rathaus, were indescribably beautiful.

I was in such a fantastic mood about the vibe of the whole place that I didn't even mind the bazillion tiny children caterwauling. For some reason, it make me think of when I was small and they used to dress up King Street and shut down traffic. I don't know if that memory is real or not, but I hope it is.

Finally, I tore myself away and headed to one of Vienna's many coffee shops. Admittedly, I felt stupid asking for a decaf Irish coffee, but that damn caffeine is a killer. In all honesty, I've been drinking much less over here, away from all of my friends. I guess I was right when I told one of them, "I drink to make you more interesting."

With one day in Vienna in the books, I can easily say that this is a fantastic city and one of the best Christmas experiences I can remember having. It's too back I enjoyed it so much, because, of course, I won't remember it.

Berlin (Part 2)

At some point in the night, roaring staccato bursts that emanated from the only other man among my five roommates nearly sent me diving to the floor to avoid machine gun fire as my post traumatic stress disorder kicked in with a vengeance. He continued to sleep blissfully as I lay there frozen. My hard breathing gave the girls the impression that it was me who´d woken them up.

Upon waking for good some hours later, I made my way to the shower. A firehose of hot water nearly sent me through the door before shutting off abruptly three seconds later. I braced myself, held the button in place and bathed, all the while watching most of my hair go down the drain.

Leaving my bags at the hostel, I made my way out to the famed Museum Island. At first I was thrilled that the winter sun was out and blazing, but then, after walking directly towards it with it reflecting off the just-washed streets and sidewalks for fifteen minutes, I was ready not to see it for awhile.

As, beyond seeking bad times, I also seek out beauty, I spent the next six and a half hours in four museums. The most famous peices I came across where Rodin´s "Thinker" and the bust of Nefertiti. She is roundly hailed as the most beautiful woman in the ancient world, but she comes a distant second to a stunner I ran across Friday night who´s infected my mind. Tongue-tied and intimidated, I meekly and lamely told that goddess, "You look very nice," before scurrying away, when what I should have declared was "My God! You´re gorgeous!" and then made my gaze burn a hole in her soul. That wouldn´t have worked though; she looked through me like I wasn´t there, or like she wished I weren´t.

General Ripper would not be happy at all with being here as water is scarcer than coffee and alcohol (which I guess means, conversely, that law students would love it). Really. At one point in the day, I stopped at one of the museum cafes and asked if I might simply have water. The woman behind the counter said "of course" and then measured out a shot from the tap. Using my left hand to pry open my parched mouth, I threw the water back with my right, slammed down the glass on the counter, and marched out, fully refreshed.

Once I´d finished with the museums I trudged back in the dark to the hostel and picked up my bags. Yet again I hiked down the Unter Den Linden, all the while singing loudly (why not when you know that no one know you?), and under the Brandenburg gate. On the way to the station, I passed the Holocaust memorial, the former site of Hitler´s bunker, and Potzdammer Platz.

On the train, I curled into a ball and slept soundly, having taken two tylenol PMs to help me with the jet lag. A few hours later, I was pleased to discover just how right a certain silly frenchman was when he stated, "Hell is other people." Two teenage girls, one of whom was surprisingly attractive, barged into my berth, bringing with them more baggage than Imelda Marcos. They giggled, talked, and went back and forth to the hallway to smoke for some time before finally petering out and getting to sleep. Later, a man checked our tickets yet again, simply so he could get a good look at the pretty one. A few hours after that, as I helped them haul their gear out at their stop, I considered telling her she was pretty, but decided against it. Why don´t pretty girls and I ever speak the same language...even when it´s English?

Berlin

To preface, as it has been brought to my attention, most serenely, that some might not "give a f@§! about [my] trip" and that to send these speaks volumes as to my "self-absorbtion" (not my spelling, but I allow literary critics to express themselves as they see fit), please feel free to send hate- email or simply press the delete button. But, now, back to me and why everything I do is great...

December 18th (Continued)

I was awakened most rudely by a teenage girl who kicked me in the foot and spouted gibberish. It took me a moment or two of looking at her like something was growing out of her forehead for me to remember where I was. She switched to English, "You´re in my seat. I reserved it." Dazed or not, I´m a B.S. artist so I can smell it a mile away. She had an unmarked seat reserved, or she wanted the only guy sitting off away from the businessmen and their computers to move so that she could sit next to her friends? Hmm... Whatever. I moved and didn´t wake up again ´til Berlin.

Berlin´s hauptbahnhof was a gigundous 22nd century contraption from which I quickly extricated myself. A taxi ride later and I was at the hostel. I´ve been in country five hours and my money is hemorraging faster than a Romanov. Between the overnight reservation to Vienna for tomorrow night, a notebook, the taxi ride and the hostel, I´m already 50€ down. It´ll take some time ´til the third coming of Christ for me to pay back this trip.

Having ditched my backpack and books, I set out in the dim cold. When I was first stationed in Germany, I didn´t see the sun for two weeks. Then, one day as I was about to go into a building, the clouds parted and I saw ole Sol for three seconds. The clouds crashed back together and I didn´t see it for another three weeks. Berlin is farther north than where I´d been stationed, but just as overcast. It started getting dark at 4pm or so.

I´m glad I wanted cold because I got it. The thermometer was hovering at freezing before the sun gave up. The wind added some kick. Hey, at least when it´s biting cold you feel alive. Ridiculous hot and you just wanna die.

I quickly found myself in one of the ubitquitous doner kebap shops. A doner is just like a gyro except that its meat is from a gigantic slab of processed chicken slathered in chemical death, instead of lamb. I bet my body won´t decompose an extra two years because of the doners I´ve pumped into it. Hey, they´re 2€; whatcha gonna do?

As I wandered I came across the Berlin Dom (Cathedral). In I went and was immediately dumbstruck by the immensity of it. I know for a fact that the Parthenon is bigger (it was the world´s largest dome until...the superdome...how lame), but that doesn´t take away from the Dom. It´s dang impressive.

I was also struck by how much the boulevard Unter Den Linden reminded me of the Champs Elysees, what with the lit up trees lining it and the ridiculously exorbitant shops (Ferrari and Bugati, to name two).

At the end sat the famous Brandenburg Gate. Goddess Victory (Nike?) rode in her four-horse-drawn chariot hoisting an Iron Cross above her head. As interesting as she was, I was more fascinated by the friezes of who appeared to be Hercules. They didn´t all correspond to his labors. I´ll be interested to discover their significance.

After Brandenburg gate, it was over to the Reichstag, the German Capitol. After a fifteen minute wait where I got to hear some jackass explain global terror politics to his girlfriend with an indeterminate accent and complete masturbatory glee, I got in the elevator and was transported to the roof. I walked around, silently surveying the city and then I climbed to the top of its glass dome. Jackass and dumbass followed a short distance behind, continuing with their incessant drivel.

After leaving, I went back towards the Dom, down the other side of Unter Den Linden, taking a moment to appreciate the giant menorah, screen, and stage erected in front of the gate where a Jewish was set to start.

I stopped at a kristkindlmarkt and sipped spicy, piping hot glühwein as I watched people skating on a rink nearby. After that I wandered on until I came to a fair that would put the SC State Fair to shame. Even the carnies were attractive (well, the women only, obviously) and, ordinarily, I´m not into Germans. The downside was that the music was horrible. I hate current American music, so of course I´m going to hate music that wouldn´t even see the light of day in the States. The upside was that even though I was wearing a trench coat, had a hat pulled down low to cover my bloodshot eyes, and was sporting classic French priest facial hair, not one person looked at me like I was a pervert.

I made it back to the hostel and, after a pair of fantabulous beers in the downstairs bar (they alone might make the crushing debt of this trip worth it), I turned in for much needed sleep.

That Was Special

I have said before that when I travel my goal is to have as bad a time as possible, shy of being maimed, killed, or raped (especially raped...). In a way, I got this from my father, the Green Beret and Ranger, who certainly taught me to seek out and thrive in misery, which we have done on countless occasions. In fact, he came to call his intentional infliction of dire circumstances, usually involving weekend hikes through the likes of the aptly named Hellhole Swamp, as "Planned Misery." The difference in our perspectives is that while he sees a weekend or two a year as a way to more perfectly appreciate the other 360+ days, I view a horrific time as no less than the essence of life itself.

Shy of this transitory, ever-fleeting present, our lives are truly our memories. Of those, I submit, the far greater part are not our joys, but our misfortunes. Perhaps the people who argue this point are sincere but my own experience and my observation of others holds it as true.

As a child I went to Disney World, what many consider the acme of childhood delights, nearly a dozen times. Of all those times being there I can hardly recall a specific episode, save, of course, for the time that it was cold and rainy. No, I can´t recall that sort of thing, but I remember quite distinctly and vividly the night on our first swamp trip when an unexpected cold front came in. We´d all packed for seventy degrees and it dropped into the low forties/ high thirties, and that was after a day of wading neck-deep in the swamp. I stayed up all night tending the fire as Pop and the cadets were curled up around me, constantly rotating as if on a spit, so as to stave off that piercing cold. In the morning, Pop discovered his plastic raincoat had melted from his trying to get so close to the fire.

It was a truly miserable night. And I love it. I know I love it now, in retrospect, but even when I´m in the moment of a truly bad time, I find I love it. Certainly not from any warped masochism, but simply for the fact that I´ll remember it; I´ll have survived it; I´ll have conquered it in a way. So most people want vague recollections of general serenity...I´ll take the ingrained knowledge of contending, of running the gauntlet and making it out the other side.

I´m sure I´m right about this, and, besides, who wants to hear about someone else´s good time? Nobody. Okay...maybe your parents, but that´s it. Good times aren´t interesting. Struggle, conflict, these are the bases of story-telling. If people want to hear about good times, why is the word commiserate?

So without further ado...

Homeland Security Agent Knuckles was refreshingly tender, yet thorough, and I was through the gate and into the pond-jumper in no time. Having to stand hunched over as the plane was apparently designed for Lilliputians was a novel experience, but after take-off, when I attempted to use the facilities and found wedging my frame into that cabinet nigh on impossible, I considered that it was perhaps I who was Brobdingnagian.

Curled in a ball, I read contentedly until we made our descent and I looked out over miles and miles of perfectly rowed and surveyed suburbs. Allow me to correct myself: exciting misery is my goal. The hellish life of the wage slave living in one of those boxes outside Detroit would never hold appeal for me, which is most of the reason why I´m not sure I´ll ever be a lawyer. Life should be living, not trying to make partner.

Bleary-eyed, the Detroit airport seemed a nice enough place. In between terminals was a long walkway tunnel. I suppose the idea was to have rapidly changing colored lights run the length of the cylinder to go along with soothing sounds and thus help travelers shed stress and think positively, but the whole thing came off like another trip down the birth canal. Born again in Detroit! Oh joy...

Despite my greatest efforts, I did suffer a most gruesome violation (of my finances, mind you) by way of a honey-tongued waitress at an airport cafe where I ate lunch. The beer she brought me could have financed a new front on the Global War on Terror. Her kind words to me couldn´t hide the fact that she´d gotten what she wanted and so I had to go. Completely disheveled, I awkwardly bid her adieu and stumbled out, feeling confused and ashamed at what had just been done to me.

As for my fun nine hours crossing the planet, I was a proper fit for my seat, though of course there were screaming babies all around, the stewardess spilled water in my lap, and I was plagued by those two bane ulences of the locked- in traveler: turb and flat. Someone also evidently thought as that it was minus- seventy outside the plane, that it should be positive- one hundred ten inside. I peeled out of my layers and cursed the heat. I´ve been in 130 degrees and I think I broke my sweat glands on the river last summer. Part of the allure of going on this trip was to finally freeze my tuckus off. I swear I might move up to Maine.

I was pleased upon landing to get the horrible recollection of being deaf, mute, and illiterate. My ability to say only "I don´t speak German; do you speak English?"; "Please"; "Thank you"; and "Yes, Mr. Bartender, I would absolutely, positively adore yet another satisfying, delicious, glorious beer" will have to do. I pulled some play money out of the ATM, stumbled on to the train to Berlin, and collapsed in a heap.

P.S. Reading law books for a semester is like weight-lifting. I thought that perhaps I brought too many books with me, but I polished off Charles Frazier´s (Cold Mountain) new book, 13 Moons, by the time I landed here.

Bon Voyage

Fully armed with a eurail pass, the requisite ridiculous facial hair, and no plan, I head off to Europe (for three weeks) tomorrow. As ever, my hopes are to have the worst time possible shy of being maimed or killed (...or raped) . Perhaps a trip to a Hungarian prison or thrashing by neo-nazis is in order as I'd certainly hate to have an ordinary time (and I need some sort of craziness after being locked in Columbia for five months). Should stumble into any adventures, be advised, I'll let y'all know.

Merry Christmas, Happy Channukah, Super Kwanzaa, and Terrific Solstice.

An Ode to Sarah Henry

This evening as the group walked out
and went to get some food,
Ms. Henry did begin to pout
and claimed that I was rude.

"André, you're always quick to tease,
not one nice thing to say.
For once in your life, pretty please,
throw compliments my way."

"Sarah, I just cannot comply
as much as I would want.
I'll leave that for some other guy,
whose dreams you no doubt haunt.

"It is just not in my nature
to say what's plain to see.
You've a stunning smile, eyes that lure,
inspiring beauty.

"Heaven forbid that you should know
and ruin what is best.
Your glorious lack of ego
sets you out from the rest."

"Many are the less pretty girls
who think that they are great,
and when their vanity unfurls
it makes me quite irate.

"So better yet I tease you well
than lose you to the mass.
If you don't like it, go to hell.
I will not kiss your ass."

And then she punched me in the face...