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Chasing Shadows --
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 | Dried, smoked meats and fragrant ("smelly") cheeses, carefully applied with herbs and dressing on or between slices of freshly baked bread -- that's right! |
| Adherence to common world standards that makes sense, like as the metric system, Celsius, and GSM -- that's right! |
| Reasonable safety -- no more, no less-- that's right! |
| A reasonably relaxed attitude towards nudity and sex -- that's right! |
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A general joi de vivre
-- that's absolutely right! |
It's raining. A heavy mountain rain has just started descending upon us. Luckily, I'm sitting under a canopy, so I'm all nice and dry. It's actually really nice -- the rain brings a certain freshness with it, and all the scents are magnified. Ahhh....
I think I'm getting sleepy. I’ve been going over my travel finances to see how much I'm spending (ever the scrooge), and I' currently at ~$130/day excluding air fare. A bit high, perhaps, but that also includes the dinner & drinks extravaganza the other night and the train ticket tomorrow. we'll see what it works out to in the end. It's not important exactly how expensive it will be -- I'm quite happy to pay what it takes -- but it helps to have an idea when planning future trips.
23:51 softporn on dtl IIamateur, threesome educational (sorry women only)
-->Breakfast is again heavenly! Fresh semmeln, a thinly sliced wurst with broccoli, Emmentaler cheese, marmelade, orange juice, coffee, and Alpenmilch. Oh, it's soo good -- food that actually tastes something! How I've missed it.
And in the latest news on CNN, the Marriott in New York is spray painting their dried-up lawns green so that their customers can see green grass. No, I'm not making this up. Apparently, the same company that sells the paint in large quantities also has a smaller spray can on the marked for household use. The water-soluble paint is claimed to be environmentally sound, but will not wash off with a light rain.
When it rains, it pours -- especially in the mountains. Last night's light drizzle is nothing compared to the torrential downpour this morning. I had to walk from the Pension to the train station for the 10:06 train, uh, bus, so I did what I had to do: took off my shoes and socks and put on my sandals, put on my WebTV wind breaker, and flipped up my umbrella. Oh, I'm so glad I tossed in an umbrella in my pack. I was so close to leaving it behind, and I would have been drenched here had I not brought it along. In general, I think I managed to et most of what I needed with me -- with a few annoying exceptions, of course. Things like laundry soap and my 200 mm zoom lens come to mind. The latter is especially annoying. My standard zoom used to be a 28-200 mm lens, and I had forgotten that I had replaced it with a faster and lighter 28-105 mm. Oh well, there is nothing much to do about it now because I sure ain't going to buy a big lens in a foreign country at the last minute before a major astronomical event. It'll be fine -- or to put it differently, I wouldn't have been able to see much with a 200 mm lens either.
I feel like I'm on an emotional roller coaster. This morning when I woke up -- and last night to some degree -- I was feeling a bit down, a bit under the weather so to speak. Like a person displaced, not knowing really what he is doing here. Then, during breakfast, my spirits arose with the delicious Austro-German fare, and I was virtually laughing to myself all the way to the train station. The fact that it was raining didn't dampen my joy one little bit: instead, it just enhanced the magic feeling of being in the mountains. Now, onboard the second bus of the morning (we had to change just outside St. Anton), I'm once again feeling my heart beat a bit faster. The object of my desire this time is the hair and neck of the girl sitting in the row in front of me. I can hardly see her face, but I'm already in love, once again. I'm filled with desire to lean over and kiss her just where her reddish brown locks met her smooth skin, and I can only imagine what it would be to go on from there. It's terrible. I have a very nice girlfriend back in the US, yet I keep falling for all the women I see here. No, not all of them, but it must be close to one a day. It's almost as if a long dormant program to respond is awaken from its long slumber. Ack!
OK. so she's not that cute (but I'd still like to lean over and kiss her neck). I got to see her face when I leaned over and asked her a question about my time table ("is this train going today"). Hey, this is actually a valid question! She examined my printed sheet for a while but wasn't really sure. At the end, she said no, I don't think so. The reply revealed fairly average looks and apparently no astounding intelligence. I also realized that she was quite young -- probably in her early 20s. Unfortunately, this neither exactly stopped my kissing desire.
At Landeck, the us stopped and se got up to get off, but then return with a flow of other passengers. The bus is now full to the brim and she's another seat away as a Japanese girl got hers. She actually joined in St. Anton, but she doesn't understand German and so was wondering if she had to change here or not. She was going to Innsbruck. No, not here, in Ötztal, I said. I'm going to Innsbruck too, just follow me. That seemed to relieve her. I'm such a stud. ;-)
Argh, the train personnel here is useless! I tried once again unsuccessfully to get a confirmation on whether the train from Steiring to Bad Ischl was going today or not, but the conductor simply waved me away saying that if there wasn't a train, there would at least be a bus. Maybe it's because my insecurity in using German in showing through? Maybe I should just be stubborn and use English instead. Oh whatever. In any case, I sure hope that he's right. I'm not really sure how much of a choice I have anyway as we're about half an hour delayed and there are three train changes on the route that goes over Salzburg, so I have a feeling I would be left behind somewhere on the way. This route that I'm now on only has one change and with a one hour connection time no less -- that is, if it's going. Ah, it'll work out. Worst case, I'll be a bit late, and absolutely worst case, I will have to call Martin and plead with him to come and pick me up.
Damn it, I'm just having too much fun all the time! I went over to the dining car just after noon and sat down on the only table available. After a few minutes, two girls came by and asked if the other seats were free. Naturlich! So they sat down. They weren't all that good looking, but they had great smiles and sometimes that's all it takes. It turned out that all they wanted was a few beers to bring with them back to their compartment, so they left pretty quickly but not without flashing a few smiles my way. Ah, flirting! It's such a great pastime.
The Tafelspitz I ordered turned out to be very good indeed. This is an old Viennese specialty that stems back to the days of Xxxx court (explanation goes here). My more modern version had boiled meat served with "mini-Rösti," a kind of small potato cakes, and horseradish-apple jam. It was all quite delicious and the Ottakringer Helles I had with it did not exactly make things worse. Ahh, this is such a civilized way of travel.
Pfew, I'm exhausted. I've been conversing in broken German with the couple sitting at my table for 20 minutes and I tell you, it's hard work! It's good practice too, but hard. It would be so much easier to switch over to English, but I must persist. They think so too. Although they seem to understand English fine, they're not letting me off the hook that easy. Damn them, but I know they're right. Everything is difficult at first and only the persistent prevail.
We're getting closer to Kitzbühel. It's an odd feeling to be back after three months away. Of course, this time the mountains are all green, but -- oops, there it was! We just passed the little "offshoot" train station next to my hotel. I hardly recognized it without the snow. It's odd -- it's so familiar, yet so different -- like most of my impressions on this trip, I guess.
Oh, i don't know what I was worrying about. For the last half hour, I seeing images of myself stuck at some small countryside village because the last connecting train to Bad Ischl from Steinach already had left. Well, there was no need to worry. Although Steinach is quite small, the train station seemed disproportionally large and there were plenty of connections north. I just had to walk over to track 1 to find the next train already there and waiting with a scheduled departure of a few minutes later. It will arrive to Bad Ischl at 17:50, which unfortunately is about an hour later than my original choice, but given the verspäterung and the questionable timetable, this really is nothing to complain about. In fact, I will be arriving about the same time as I originally told Martin, so it's pretty close to perfect. All I need to do when arriving to Bad Ischl is to figure out how to get to Strobl / St. Wolfgang, but if I can't find a bus, then it can't be all that expensive to take a cab instead. And/or I'll call Martin. After all, I really won't be all that far away.
Ay, what was that? Something shiny struck my face for a moment, and I think it might be the sun. If it was, it's the first I've seen of it since yesterday. The sky is still overcast, but here ad there there are patches of something blue/gray that may just be the sky. Hey, maybe there's hope for tomorrow after all! One can but hope...
By the way, surprise, surprise: This slow little train turned out to be the most fun of them all so far! Its path is taking us straight up into the mountains and the landscape surrounding us is gorgeous. It's a single gage track, so we can only meet trains at the stations, but with a station every few minutes and only one train every hour or so, that doesn't seem to be much of a problem.
I arrived to Bad Ischl on or just before time and quickly found that the next bus to St. Wolfgang was going to leave in 25 minutes. The journey itself was a surprisingly long 30 minutes, which I presume is due to the many stops the bus presumably does. So, I figured I could call Martin to see where he was. A phone card worth ATS 50 was easy to get at the kiosk across the street, but the phone booth was thoroughly occupied by some Italian women who apparently was acting out a sizable interactive novel with her partner on the other end. In other words, she was talking a mile a minute with no immediate end in sight. A walk around the station revealed another phone booth, but unfortunately, it did not accept phone cards. Rats. Back to the first booth and lo, our Italian friend had amazingly been replaced by a local counterpart, but fortunately, her version was not quite as voluminous, so after a few minutes, I got my chance. Martin answered right away, and it probably was a good thing I had called him too, because my hotel was no longer my hotel. Instead of being booked into Försterhof, we were now at St. Wolfganghof for some reason. They were already there and although they didn't really know where Bad Ischl was, still insisted on coming and picking me up. So here I am, typing these notes while waiting for my ride to arrive. Hey, like a miracle the sun even started to shine again, this time from a truly blue sky opening up in the direction of St. Wolfgang. Life isn't too bad! The only thing missing now would be a beer in my hand. OK, and maybe a girl under my arm, but that's harder or at least more costly to fix.
Well, well, well, here we are at Martin & Mia's hotel just outside Strobl. It's less than an and a half hour left before total eclipse. We're putting together polymer film based filters for our cameras and keep looking at the sky expectantly. The sun keeps coming out and disappearing behind the clouds. It's not great, but it could have been a lot worse -- at least it's not raining. There is a group of Italians here next to us who are giving a lot of entertainment too. They've positioned themselves on a slope next to the hotel and have brought out all their cameras, tripods, wives, relatives, and...
PRESS STOP -- PRESS STOP -- PRESS STOP! The northeastern edge of the sun just started disappearing! I think this thing might be real after all! For a moment, we were hypothesizing that this whole event was just a creation of the Austrian tourist board who wanted to make sure that the hotels would get good business. Amazing. It's like someone started eating up the disc and is gobbling up one slice after the other.
Oh-oh, a thick blanket of very gray clouds just arrived. There are a few glimpses of blue sky in the distance and the clouds are moving pretty swiftly, so let's hope that things will change in time for the big event. It is one hour left pretty exactly now.
A moment of clarity in an otherwise totally gray sky. 40 minutes left.
28 minutes left. Still gray skies, but more blue areas are cracking up in the distance. There is still hope.
Ah, a crack appeared and showed 80% of the sun covered! It's still amazingly bright here. The dark gray clouds are virtually gone, but there are still some thick white ones overhead. Still, more blue cracks are closing in rapidly. 14 more minutes.
It's time! But the sun isn't completely gone yet. Unfortunately, more gray clouds have appeared. You can still see a thin slice of the sun, but it's getting harder and harder
It’s here! Everything is dark around us and the streetlights have just come on. It's a most amazing thing! The sky is still bright in the distance, it's like there is a sunset all around us (although a good part of the view is blocked by mountains). Everything is quiet, it's like the world is standing still for a few moments in the life of the Earth.
And before you know it, it's all over. Ahhh... What an experience! Although the clouds covered the view most of the time, we were lucky enough to get a moment's glimpse of the corona before the sun reappeared and daylight quickly returned. I tried to take a picture, but I fear that the lack of a tripod made it too shaky to really be viewable. (I had brought a tripod, but lent it to Martin because he had a longer lens and was more in need of it.)
The last sliver of the moon is quickly disappearing and life appears to be back at normal. We've just had a most delicious lunch at the hotel and are getting ready for a little hike up the mountain of Postalm for an afternoon coffee and strudel somewhere at a hütte up there.
Two hours hiking and 30 minutes snack time.
If I hadn't been so mindfuckingly tired, I would have written something witty a& interesting here.
For the second day in a row, I arrived to breakfast before Richard.
Life is again smiling. After a late lunch at Augstiner Keller with accompanying "small" (0.5L) beer, we said goodbye to Martin & Mia who are continuing to Lindau or Bregentz (they'll decide later), and I'm now sitting at the famous Hofbräuhaus with Richard and two maß (1.0L) glasses of their Original. There are people everywhere -- in the Bräuhaus, in the streets, in the subway -- everywhere! A lot of tourists, but a lot of Germans too. Some quite attractive. I think it's just the difference in style from what I've been used to for the past 8 years that I find exciting. Of course, not all women all women are all that exciting -- no, maybe only 2-5%. But those that are! Oh, la, la! I have to come back...
Fan, ju fullare man blir desto kärare
blir man. Det var ju riktigt
trevligt när jag snackdade med Hilari härom stunden och man önskar ju nästan
att hon vore här just nu! Nja, stryk "nästan" då...
Det är annars kallt i München. Jag
har nu tagit på mig både tröja och jacka och ändå är det lite svalt.
An old anti-nuke song by Jan Hammarlund rings through my mind:
Jag vill leva i Europa
jag vill älska och sjunga här
jag vill gråta och skratta och dansa
jag är yr och förlorad och kär
när jag tänker på Europa
och på oss som hör hemma här.
I want to live in Europe,
I want to love and sing here
I want to cry and laugh and dance
I'm dizzy and lost and in love
when I think of Europe
and about us who belong here.
www.lonix.fi
I'm once again in the center seat, squashed between a middle-aged man of unknown origin on the right and a young Finnish woman on my left. Nice, but not particularly cute. In front of me is a pretty big guy who's head keeps blocking the video monitor, and across the isle is a Middle Eastern women who is snoring loudly while asleep. 6 more hours to go. Sigh, I've gotta quit flying coach.
You know, the hardest thing about writing a travel journal is that when interesting things are happening, you don't have time to write about them, and when you do have time, you don't feel like you have anything interesting to say.
Her name is Anu, she's 19 (!) and on her way to see her boyfriend, who is an au pair in Vancouver. We chat for a while, half in Swedish and half in English. This is her first big trip by herself, but she seems to be doing just fine. Good Scandinavian stock! Not unafraid to go out and explore the world.
Smart, very smart -- a veritable stroke of genius! There is a pub just by the exit funnel in the arrivals section at Vancouver Airport so that people waiting for their friends to arrive can do so in comfort and style. I'm amazed how nice, and may I say it "un-American" this airport is. The area leading to the passport control is just stunning with an interior waterfall and lots of wood and subtle colors. As the first thing you see as you enter the country, it's very impressive and immediately impresses the visitor with notions of style and quality -- a pleasant welcome and a great PR for the country. All over, the architecture is clean and simple, yet at the same time very warm, appealing, and interesting. Objects of national art are spread out throughout and a wide variety of different types of dishes are available in the food court in the departure hall.
Last leg back to "home," i.e. the place I live at. It is with mixed feelings that I boarded the Alaska Airlines aircraft that will take me back to San Francisco. Although it will be nice to return to my own bed and all my things, I feel like I'm leaving the part of the world I feel most "at home" at behind me. Although I've been in the US for close to 8 years now and feel quite used to it, there are a lot of things that I never will be able to accept -- violence, superficiality, homelessness, repressed sexuality, etc.
In a sense, returning through Vancouver turned out to be a blessing. By being such a mix of Europe and the USA, it softened the transition from
I'm glad I could do it through Vancouver, as it softened the transition from Europe to the USA.
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