WhutsHappening

Savage Surfari through an Untamed Rica Costa

 

It was cold and windy the day we left Annapolis for Costa Rica.  The six of us were in our early 20s, recently birthed from college and already facing the mundane routine of everyday working middle class life.  My five companions were all going to surf, and while I had never even touched a surfboard before, I was invited to go along and take a photo documentary of the trip.  We were heading into the relatively unknown.  Two of the guys had been to Tamarindo before and another had been to the Caribbean side of Costa Rica.  But, I think we all knew, because of a lack of any real plans, except where we were staying the first night, the date we were to leave, and the desire to find good surf, we really didn’t know what was going to happen.  As we passed by the suburban houses, strip malls, and car dealerships on the way to the airport, the rest of the guys couldn’t stop making comments like, “this is so much better than being at work.”  I wondered how much different Costa Rica would be the way one might wonder what he will dream about that night. 

We arrived in San Jose at around 8 pm.  We got our luggage with no problems, hopped into a 4x4 Toyota Land Cruiser Prado, a rhino of a car not imported to the states, and headed down Central America’s lone major highway.  There were very few signs telling the way and even less telling where the exits would take you.  The terrain became mountainous, and we watched as trucks passed cars along the dangerous, winding roads, each time thinking we would witness a horrific accident.  Soon after passing a big street festival, we stopped at a restaurant where the locals belted out their favorite songs at the karaoke machine.  I ordered an arroz con pollo dish that gave new meaning to the chicken and rice dinner I always ordered at Mexican restaurants in the states.  If nothing else, I knew the food would be good.

It was past midnight when we arrived at the six-room Hotel Buccanero in Playa Grande, just down the beach from the town of Tamarindo.  The owner, James, an English gentleman in his early sixties, was there to greet us after four hours of driving.  We walked down to the beach, which we could barely see because it was so dark, only to be greeted by some sort of policeman who ordered us off the beach – it was egg laying time for giant sea turtles.  We went peacefully back to the hotel, had another beer, and went to our rooms to rest. 

One of our crew woke up at 5:15 to catch the first crop of waves from the incoming tide.  I got up about an hour later with the rest of the guys and we walked about 50 meters to the beach where decent surf was breaking.  I took some photos, relaxed under a palm hunt, and looked around.  There were few signs of modern civilization.  Far down the crescent-shaped beach on the left was Tamarindo.  To the right was more beach and a rocky cliff jutting into the ocean.  In front of me were my buddies and about fifteen other surfers jockeying for waves.  This was Costa Rica.

We came back to the tiny hotel to have breakfast and coffee while Clara, James’ six-year-old daughter, laughed at the birds that flew into the kitchen looking for handouts.  During the afternoon we traveled to Tamarindo, taking a dirt road short cut that James had told us about.  A very small town, Tamarindo has a picturesque beach with horse riding, surfing, and boats.  It hosts a few hotels, including a Best Western, and its main street (the only street really) is lined with small shops, a grocery store, and surf lesson businesses.  After having a look around and purchasing beer, water, and some herbal refreshments, we headed back to Playa Grande for more surfing. 

            The sun set over the water, which made it difficult to photograph the surfers.  But, as the sun retreated over the horizon, it became a beautiful merger of sparkling water, reddish-purple skies that begged to be painted, and battles to catch waves.  I got some good shots, the guys caught some good waves, and then we all strolled back with the ocean still in our ears to shower and get ready for some local night life. 

            After eating, of all things, pizza, at a local place that cooked their pizza in a giant outdoor stone oven, we headed to a bar that James recommended called “Why Not.”  There weren’t too many patrons there, only about ten local women and the owner/bartender who was from Denmark.  The women were very friendly - too friendly.  We soon found out from our Danish friend why the place was called Why Not:  after 10pm it becomes a brothel.  We quickly drank our beers as the Dane tried to coax us into buying some time with his girls and left for a beach party in Tamarindo.  Mostly young people from all over the globe, dancing, drinking, conversing, enjoying the freedom of the night there next to the ocean, the beach party was more our speed.

            The next morning delivered a rather disappointing set of waves, but we met some fellow Americans, a recently engaged couple and the groom-to-be’s best friend from California.  The guys owned a pool cleaning company and were a mix of Spicoli, Cheech, and Patrick Swayze from Point Break.  The bride-to-be was getting her master’s degree in marine biology.  As we shared a beer and a bowl with them, they talked freely and with enthusiasm about how nice it was to be there and not back in California working.  We couldn’t have agreed more.

            That afternoon we packed our things and headed north to the world renowned surfer’s destination Witch’s Rock.  We stopped in the town of Liberia for some supplies along the way.  Liberia is bigger and more modern than Tamarindo, but it’s inland and doesn’t boast beautiful beaches. Certainly a trade-off.  We then traveled another 20 or 30 kilometers to the park entrance where we had to pay $6 to enter. 

The park ranger that greeted us said we had about seven kilometers of paved and 13 of unpaved road ahead.  No one is allowed in without four-wheel drive.  The paved road wasn’t in too poor a condition, but the unpaved road was filled with pot holes that could double for moon craters and rocky hills and steeps made of small boulders. There were also dry creek beds that flow with water during the wet season that had to be traversed.  Taking about an hour to complete, it was the longest 13 kilometers I’ve ever traveled, except maybe a rush hour trip through D.C. and it left me with a mild case of whiplash.  After the final obstacle, a wood bridge about the width of our car over a small stream, we arrived at the camp site.  We paid another two dollars to set up camp under some trees and headed to the beach.

The sand was hot and scorched our feet.  We looked around.  No hotels.  No houses.  No roads, TVs, or phones.  Nothing but ocean and forest for miles and miles.  Soon forgetting about the pain from beneath us, we looked down the beach to see what had until that moment only been an image on a poster hanging on my buddy’s living room wall.  Its size, and the looming ridge of green mountains behind it, made Witch’s Rock look like the clenched fist of a colossal titan raised out of the ocean in one last act of defiance against the gods before being buried under the ocean, stuck there for eternity.  And that’s what also made it look much closer than it actually was.  About a mile down the beach, in loose sand hardly ever traversed, it was a long walk.  But, the payoff was worth it.  Well, at least the view was.  There were only about five or six other surfers there, and although the solitude amidst that incredible place was fresh and peaceful, it didn’t make the waves any better for the guys.  Either way, I think they were happy just to be there, bobbing on their boards, waiting patiently for a wave.

High tide left small pools of water on top of a shelf of sand formed by the outgoing water.  The still water reflected the orange-yellow glow of the dying sky and the drift wood that was left on the beach was bleached by the sun and buried in the sand, forming strange shapes that look like serpents or a graveyard for trees.  We bathed in the late afternoon ocean water.  At 80 degrees it’s quite refreshing.  We chopped some wood to start a fire in our stone grill, threw on a huge fish, and ate our dinner as the darkness came quickly down.   

            I played my guitar after dinner as the mosquitoes made a meal out of my ankles, feet, and legs.  But, the wind picked up and drove the pests away.  For fun, someone threw a few bananas on the grill and after a few minutes we scooped warm gooey banana into our mouths for a nice desert.  From about 9:30 until we went to bed, we were on raccoon watch.  The raccoons were big and fearless, walking straight up to our camp even while we were still sitting there.  What was worse was that it was so dark we couldn’t see them.  All we could hear were little feet pitter-pattering around us, or a “raccoon proof” trashcan getting tipped over.  I swore one was trying to get into my tent all night. 

            We trekked down to Witch’s Rock again the next day.  The surf was as disappointing as it was the day before.  So after a quick bath in the ocean, using lemon juice for shampoo, we packed up, drove the 20 kilometers out of the park, and headed south to Nosara on a tip from another surfer.     

            Nosara is a little town mostly inhabited and visited by English speaking peoples.  Canadians and Americans.  There are yoga clinics, and the restaurants and bars are all set up and run like most places you’d find in the states – only you’re in Costa Rica.  All the shops, and by all I mean maybe three or four, are tourist oriented, sell mock Tican bowls and artifacts, and T-shirts.  The surf in Nosara is big and a world renowned surfing competition is held there every year.          

Since we didn’t really have a plan on where to stay, we stopped at a place that looked suitable for our needs and budget that had rooms and a bar.  The place was called Blew Dogs and the manager, Jose, told us that he only had one room with two beds.  Not enough for us.  So, Jose told us that just around the corner there was a place for $10 a night.  We followed his directions and  ended up at Tiki Surf Camp, a big tiki hut that used to be a disco-tech, but was now simply a surf camp.  Most importantly it had room for us all in the loft above.  The place was run by an American woman, Debbie, who only wore tube tops and bikini bottoms.  Her three-year-old son, Darrian, named after a famous surfer, was excited to have us there to play with when the surf was out. 

            The two days and two nights at the hut were the best time we had.  We slept in the open air with the tiki roof above us.  A ceiling fan kept us cool and the bugs away.  In the early morning and at night we woke to hear the  Howler monkeys in the jungle.  Their howl is deep and enormous, like some demonic beast calling out in the darkness.  They were in the trees nibbling on sugar cane as we walked from the tiki hut through the jungle to the beach.  They’re small and black with a long curling tail, and looked nothing like the sound that they created.

            In the mornings the guys surfed and I snapped photos of them as they caught some of the best waves of the trip.  Part of me wished I could surf with them, but I was content to watch them paddle into the waves, pop up, and drop into tall, crisp waves that spewed off mist from the offshore winds.  In the afternoons we played  with Darian, who reminded us of what it’s like to see the world through a child’s eyes, riding his toy truck around, giggling at our little tricks, napping when he got cranky.  We rented ATVs and zoomed around the dirt roads.  I went off by myself and found a road that went to the top of a hill, passing by a few Ticos outside their house that looked at me strangely.  I came to a point that looked out over the ocean and the dense foliage below.  It was a view that the Costa Rican government would want to put on an advertisement for tourism:  picturesque and quiet with a warm wind that could make anyone forget the rest of the world ever existed. 

One afternoon, Debbie’s boyfriend, Atto, took us to the beach and over a rocky protrusion to a local restaurant for lunch.  We sat at tables under a thatched roof and drank beers as we watched children washing the fresh caught fish that was about to be cooked and then enjoyed by us.  Other children played a game, kicking an inflated ball around near their shanty houses that sat no more than 50 yards from the beach.  We all wonder what that life would be like, having so little in such a paradise.  Could we live that life? 

            It was a sad day when we left the tiki hut.  Darian yelled at us and even threw a rock at our car as we backed out of the driveway.  Who knows when the next group of guys would come through and play with him again?  We were heading further south to Playa Hermosa for the final two days of our trip.  We got a little lost, one time ending up on a grassy path where only four-wheelers are supposed to go.  But we got back on track and were able to see all the countryside that was covered in darkness when we first arrived in Costa Rica. 

Barbed wire fences with posts made from trees lined almost every kilometer we drove.  These weren’t the posts one sees in America that are cut, shaped, and treated.  They’re actual trees, cut into halves and thirds and grouped into twos and threes and stuck in the ground.  Some had even sprouted new leaves again and lined up looking like a fence of young trees.  Cattle appeared sporadically in fields of brown and green, or in herds in the middle of the road.  The hills rolled into one another, sometimes shooting up very high, then falling down, looking like a rounded off line chart.  Dense patches of trees and chaotically placed palm trees filled the hills and fields.  My favorite were the trees that had lost their leaves for the dry season.  Their limbs spread out, pale white and brown, in strange patterns, sometime tabling off at the top. 

After about an hours drive, we finally arrived in Playa Hermosa.  Two of the guys had stayed there before and we got an air conditioned room for the first night, and a much smaller, much hotter room for the second at a beach front hotel.  The black sand there showed the evidence of the volcanic activity that built the land here and it’s so hot during the day that I felt like I was walking on a volcano.  The surf was big, but broke straight over and surfing for the guys was difficult, so most of the day was spent sunbathing by the pool or lazily swinging in hammocks.  A few thoughts of the end of the trip entered the conversation, but were fleeting and promptly forgotten. 

We drove a few miles to the nearby town of Jaco for some night life.  It was the largest, most modern town we went to and offered ATMs, restaurants, bars, dance clubs, shops, surfing schools, fishing trips, strip clubs, drug stores, and drug dealers.  After stopping at an ATM, we went to a restaurant, a bar, and a strip club.  We drank, and we drank hard.  Up to this point, the escape that large amounts of alcohol provided in our real lives wasn’t needed.  In Costa Rica we were escaped.  Was it the life of the town that bled into us?  Could we not look unabashed at a Costa Rican stripper without a good buzz?  Or was it all these things, the ATM modern world, that pricked some part of us and reminded us where we came from and where we were about to go back to that caused us to get so damn drunk? 

The next morning we woke up late.  The sun had already risen and the room was stuffy and hot.  We tried to shrug off our hangovers and drove down the beach to find surf.  When we found our spot, I decided to try to do some boogie boarding.  I paddled out into the giant surf and proceeded to get pounded by wave after wave.  I tried my best to get past the break point but was continually pushed back.  Then, like a wrestler delivering the final crushing move, I was slammed into the ocean floor and rolled like a piece of dirty laundry in a washing machine.  I panicked, fighting for the surface and air.  After what seemed like hours, I finally emerged from the torrent, regained my bearings, and swam to shore to lick my wounds.  I decided to stay with my camera and let them do the surfing from then on. 

The next day we drove solemnly back to the airport in San Jose.  Much of the ride was quiet, everybody taking in the scenery, thinking to themselves.  I imagine the rest of the guys were thinking about emails and meetings already, or how they could possibly figure out a way to stay another day.  Yes, in the most general of terms it was simply a vacation.  But other than a couple of excursions to Mexico, it was my first time out of the states and an introduction to a part of the world so very different than my own.  The Westerners that we met were all people who seemed to want to escape from everything they had come from, wanting to live life on a basic level.  And the Ticos were a kind people, ready to help one find that type of life.  I guess that’s why Costa Rica’s motto is “Pura Vida” – pure life.  

-by A. Givens (WH guestwriter)   

                                 

               

             

Snacks and Supplies (Outback part 3)

So we boarded back up, checked for our seat neighbor, and pulled the beast of a bus away from the snack schack, and further west. I later found out that the umbral shadow (the place on the earth where the eclipse is total) really was out in the middle of nowhere. We were going to be about sixty kilometers from the nearest Town of Lindhurst, a town of eighty individuals, and much like Burning Man in the middle of Arizona, we were going to be completely reliant on what we packed in. Interestingly enough, I had no food with me, and actually no cash either. I had a bottle of water, and guitar, though, and of course Taku, and the rest of the good people around me, so my spirits remained high.

As the bus trundled along, seats changed, mix tapes were passed forward and back, and new little friendships and alliances were formed among the different little sections of seating. I didn’t end up hanging with Taku as much as I might have liked, due to our speach barrier, but I did glean a few things. First, he was going to try to meet up with some of his friends, but I could share his two-man tent. Second, he was going to blaze some up this trip; not only on spliffies, but fire-staff and fire-poi too. I have always had a secret desire to learn fire-dancing, and made a point to track down the fire circle in all its burning beauty.

I ended up getting to know a couple of the Brasilian lads a few seats back, as a tiny bit of Portugese was the only language I knew other than worthless German. I took German for two years in highschool, but because I was fulfilling a requirement, and rebeling against the evil Mrs. Bowler the whole time, I remember very little. I had spent less than a month in Brasil, but because I wanted to be there and learn, it stayed in my brain ten times better. What is the better teacher, school or travel? I say travel, but I am prejudiced.

So I ended up talking about Brasil with my new Homies Fabricio and Andre. Throught thier connection, I also met Layla, Thatianna, and Adrianna, who were just as beautiful and exotic as the Israelis. WE all took turns twisting to talk the person behind us, or turning talk to the peeps across. Every few hours we would stop at some ramshackle roadside schack, and everyone would light something, pee, sometimes snack, and stretch a bit. We knew we’d been cruising at nearly 100K through the rolling desert, which would put us on location sometime in the middle of the night. It didn’t really matter, there were no showers waiting for us there, only desert, and trucked in water. Before long I would be running behind the water truck, moslty naked, half-washing my dusted red body, and then air-drying in the warmth. Around supper, we swung into the Ranch House, a restaraunt which pretty much was a Ranch house, but the Outback version (isn’t it hard not to think of the Restaraunt-persistant advertising soaks into your being, altering your id and ego). This was giant plank barn-building wooden floors. They knew we wer coming, apprently, cause they had big bowls of salad, corn on the cob, and rolls for everyone, and then you chose a main meat: emu, beef or chicken. I don’t know where they got the chickens, but maybe it was just past the pens where they kept the emu’s, those giant dinosaur birds. Can you imagine if they had raptor teeth and were a little smarter?

For some reason I did not get my hands, or teeth, on any of the emu, but the rest of the spread was delectable, nice and hearty to fit in with our rugged journy. WE must have been a sight coming through these small towns, all flowing skirts, and oversized sunnies, and wierd hair, clamoring through this ancient farmland. Of course it was all really aboriginal land, but natives these days don’t seem to have the say to any of their native lands, white men have seen to that. The same cows that supported this little Resteraunt Oasis were probably part of the reason that those original British Australians had rounded up the natives to cure them of thier savagery and take from them any valuable resources. Pretty much same old story, just like the Natives in the Americas, but in the Southern hemisphere

We piled back into the bus, some people switching seats to chat with others. I ended up talking with one Brasilian named Adrianna for a bit, who was definitley attractive, with a billowy white blouse on Only later did I find out she was 30 years old, an real woman, and me still becoming a man. We kind of bonded without knowing it, but I thought nothing of it at the time. Around midnight everyone started passing out in thier seats, but within about 2 hours we were arriving at the outskirts of the festival.

The lights came on as the gate staff came and checked all our wristbands.  Taku had loaned me $350 AUS to pay for my bus trip, and wristband (at the time, only $175 US.) I raised my wrist with its green band that I would have on for the next couple weeks, and got that warm fuzzy VIP feeling that happens when you actually have tickets to the show. The lights went off and we continued into the camping area. We'd been on dirt road for a dozen miles, and continued until we reached our soon-to-be campsite area. Taku and I smoked a bowlski and set up his tent, while the others found spots in the dirt nearby. It was windy, and dark, and disorienting, and wonderful. Taku even had an extra little blanket thing for me. Once inside our little hovel, we situatied our few posessions, and Taku made appear the most original tentertainment ever: a tiny samurai some 8 inches high.

If you have seen Being John Malkovich before, or somehow actually been to a puppet show, you know how much personality one of those little wooden creatures can be. Taku lit an incense, a candle, and spliffy, and commenced the most original ad-lib performance in memory. The horizontal wooden cross held the dozen strings that supported Shizu the puppet. He began lying down, and appeared to awake, wiping the sleep from his eyes, and sitting up. Taku didn't narrate as much as he Mr. Beaned Shizu's actions. As he stood up, he muttered "Oh" in a Kung-Foo movie fashion, and then began muttering in Japanese as he began to walk around the space in between Taku and I.

Next thing you know, there is a techno beat-box in the background and Shizu starts to move. With the candle casting a dancing shadow against the tent wall, and and the incense smoke dancing its own beat, Shizu began to move like an electro dancer. He didn't just wiggle frenetically, but actually executed stylish and flowing arm, leg and body motions. His little Gee outfit and mustache only added to the believability of this little character. After busting a few more moves, Shizu stopped and looked at me for a bit, walking about and muttering to himself as he explored the tent some more. Taku and I just watched, mesmerized by the spontaneous performance, and cozy and happy in our stony, smoky world.

Tired.  Sleepy."  Taku said. I concurred, and we killed the candle. It felt great to finally be here, whereever the hell we were, dirty and disheveled as we were. Tomorrow, I had eventually deduced, the bus was going 100 Kilometers north to Alice Springs to refuel. This was my chance to actually find a bank and get some money out. At this point I was running on credit, so I needed a physical bank to get an advance. For future reference, banks are few and very far between in the middle of the Outback desert, but we were presuming that this "main town" would have one. We crashed hard, dreaming of Electro beats and dancing Samurais', ready to see our new home in the bright southern sun.

The next morning was we rolled out of our hot tent and eyed the surroundings. We were on the East side of a giant elevated burm, maybe 15 feet high, that used to serve as a railway path.  The spread of tents on this side of the burm went for about a quarter mile in each direction, bisected by a dirt access road. Towering, thousand-gallon water stations stuck intermittantly along the roadway, and plywood stalls built around palets constituted the showers. As we discovered who our neighbors were, we were stoked to find out that most of them were from our green bus. Our direct neighbors were two hella cool Brits named Liam and Sonja. I'd said hello on the bus, and whatnot, but we got to know them a little better in camp. Liam was a photographer punker, who ended up introducing me to Billy Bragg, and Sonja was a graphic artist student in the UK.  We chatted with them and the Brazilian Crew, and then walked up and over the burm to see what was on the other side. What we found was the whole rest of the event: another whole section of tents, the entire food, art, and craft area, three main stages, and a whole slew of holistic healing, meditation, and first aid tents. It was nothing less than a man-made oasis of art and international culture, a cornocopia awaiting our abandon.

Before delving into the pulsating organism that was the event, though, Taku and I had to get the bus to town to get cash and food. We found Hippy-Ruby, the girl who had collected the money and issued the bracelets (I still owed $150 bucks for the whole thing), and she pointed us in the general direction of the bus. We finally found the sailor-looking bus drivers, and boarde the bus with a few other unprepared stragglers. During the cruise to Alice Springs, we took the top, front seat, which is like being on a submarine or something; a huge front window, 10 feet off the ground, with no driver to obstruct the view. I wrote in my journal and dozed until we were there.

One of the few pics I have of the event, as I could not get film for my stupid Advantix Camera, is of Tak and I in front of the general store, with our sun-hats, and a couple bags of groceries.  I'd secured 500 AUD for spending (I would end up getting more later) and bought a few miscilaneous food stuffs like bananas, crackers, water, and some canned goods. In the pic, we are a pair of vagabonds, already dirty, but now stocked up for the journey, sun-hats and all. It was outside this store that we discovered one of unpredictable twists of our adventure.  While chillin, we'd rolled a spliffy with the Hash, but for some reason it wouldn't burn right, and really didn't seem to tast like hash much. After attempting to suck down an entire spliff, we took a closer look at our little cube. Lo and behold, old skanky scarface seemded sketchy cause he was; the hash was a dirty, tobacco flecked chunk of black licorice!!! We'd been scammed for real!  My fault for trusting sketch boy, and a little lesson in testing the goods. Se la vie! Luckily I had a couple hundred dollars in my pocket waiting to be spent on drugs in the desert.  We loaded all the goodies onto the bus, and headed back down south to our campground.

PArt 2.  Part 4-Serendipity and the Beginning of the Show.

The Light of Day. OZ. pt.7

I trundled off from the fire-circle with no real direction in mind.  Surrounding the stages were the healing tents, a smaller practice fire circle, and a projector screen displaying sounds and images spliced and segued in logicless, spontaneous fashion--perfect for the complimentary minds that stood entranced by it.  I crossed my legs to watch what appeared to be a 50's movie, a stoic conversation between a man and a boy, spattered with Jerry-bear like dancing images, and occasionally morphing into Rorschach-blot-looking colored designs, and then back to the dialog-I felt like a goldfish, as each image became my reality, unrelated to the previous reality, and easily discarded for the next; blub blub.  I was in that zone where I was looking around for other people to share my wonder, but not secure enough in my state to be overtly social.  After an indeterminate amount of time, I wandered on alone, but still in vibrational sync with the great swath of international humanity all around me.  I could sense that Adrianna wanted to find me too, somehow, across the dark, pulsing night I worked my way back to the main stage and my Brasilian companeros.

Adrianna's trip had hit a bump in the road, and her tummy hurt a bit, I didn't hesitate at all to console, and care for her in the melodramatic LSD manner.  It was deep in the night now, and I couldn't tell how or where I was in my journey.  Between hugging and stroking and dancing and closing my eyes and opening my eyes and absorbing the night and light of harmony enveloping us, the night turned toward morning.  We healed each other and shared cigarettes and oohed and ahed.

"It's amazing no?" sounding more Italian than Brasilian  Adrianna would inquire regularly, often after a time-stopping make-out session.  We decided to watch sunrise from the big dirt burm back by the tent, and then find sleep.  There were innumerable couples and groups with us on the sunrise burm, time was meaningless in places like this, and our minds were exhausted from the nights inputs and exertions.  The sunrise was impeccable, shimmering over the Southwestern Desert.  We retired to Adrianna's tent in the last remaining cool morning hours, took each others clothes off released all our pent-up lust from the long night of penning up lust.  It was perfect, and we fell asleep in our underclothes with the tent door open, and soon the light breeze turned our daydreams into dreams.

We roused around 1:00 p.m., to the full heat of the day, and mild disorientation, smiling at each other, and the perfection of our affair.  I cruised back to my tent to eat some crackers and tuna, and hot cheese, and grab my shower stuff.  Showers consisted of a collection of plywood stalls, around pallets, and buckets to collect cold water from the two-story water drums; this was perfect.  The sweat and dust and drugs and sweat had formed an imperceptible halo around my body-my skin was visibly reddish, but the real layer around me was inches thick, just hot energy and chemicals and images from the night before.  I dumped the first bucket of cold water over my head and gasped with pleasure.  Found a piece of soap on the pallet and washed a bit, and then more cold water, balancing on the pallet, listening to world outside my roofless stall. 

When I came back to the tent, Liam and Sonya were there eating lunch-calm and well-rested, if not a little shaky. 

"Hey mate!" They called to me, "How was your night?" They asked in the same way you address someone that got really drunk the night before.

"Amazing, bruv, amazing.  Did you see the firedancers?  Awesome."

"Yeah we did.  Thanks for the goodies, by the way, we had a lot of fun."

"Wait til tonight, mang.  ECLIPSE.  6:30.  did you get your glasses?"

"No, where do we get them?"

We made loose plans to walk around that day, and explore.  Liam had discovered a bar in Lyndhurst, the tiny, defunct railroad town just down the road.  Mmmm, beer, strange how good it sounds even after a night of penultimate debauchery.  Audaciously, I even thought about my hard-drug supplies for the upcoming night, the night of the eclipse, 30-some seconds of totality, we wild ones congregated in the path of the umbral shadow, the eternal earth-shaking shadow of the moon blotting out the sun, stopping time and starting the tribes aworshiping, we would howl like wolves and babies and the sliver of life that we represented, only hours away.

For now, we smoked another sweet bowl with the Aussies, I got to say hello to Taku, who had found his Japanese friends and a big googly smile, and milled about in the sun.  I watched the naked hippies chasing the water truck as it sprayed down the dust, white skin wetted, and then soaped, and then wetted by the moving spray.  Clouds flowered softly above, the horizon white, the buzz tangible.  Adrianna, Liam Sonja and I decided to walk/hitch to shack of a bar that we'd heard about, which we did in the back of a truck leaving the festival site on their way to Lyndhurst.  Lyndhurst really was a one-horse town, though where that horse was was was anyone's guess, beyond the weathered-wood bar that we found perched gray in the expanse of red and blue.  The porch that hadn't seen more than a dozen people since the railroad had stopped coming through here in the 60's, was strewn with the colorful beat people of the world, and their guitars, and scarves, and cares.  Green Victoria Bitter cans were everywhere, and suddenly my excitement grew again; oh the joys of beer in the heat, with your friends.  Liam and Sonja already had a plastic jug of wine, which we'd been swilling along the way.

I found the large female proprietor to find out if I could get yet another cash advance, as I already spent most of my money on food and drugs, and the festival.  Miraculously, the overwhelmed Aussie said yeah, they could do it, and added 400 AUD to my bill for 2 six packs of VB, and two 25 packs of Weatherford Cigarettes.  I felt that same whoop of vibrant possibility as I turned back to Adrianna's smile with my booty.

"Ah, VB, muinto bon," she said and gave me a kiss in front of the dirty crowd.  We found a place on the porch to drink and smoke for a while.  Somehow we decided to walk back to the campsite, some mile or so away.  It was hot, in the 90's, but we had beer, and each other.  We passed by old tractors, and pond of some sort, bust mostly scrub and dirt.  Occasionally, Adrianna and I would stop and make out.

"I can't believe!" She would exclaim, "It's amazing, no?" Our compatibility was no less.

"Get a Desert!" Liam shouted at us in his British lilt, kissing Sonja and smiling.  I laughed and looked back toward the campsite, now with a handful of beers in my system. I still wore the same oversized bright board shorts, and sunhat, and Reef's, and a cigarette hung from my happy lips.  I was addicted to it all, as I always had been; not any specific drug, but the vivacity of the combination, the risk and ridiculousness of what we'd created.  The Rainbow flags fluttered, and the artists sat making and vending their goods, marking the main entrance, the music had never stopped, not for a moment, and wouldn't until just before the eclipse.  The kids were all dancing, or napping, or drinking, or meeting their lovers, or even leading their deaf students around the zoo of humanity as one Canadian character was doing.  We didn't even have nationalities anymore, we were just eclipsers, lucky, lucky, once in a lifetime lovers of life.  It is a moment in time that will live in my heart forever and ever: raw, young, perfect loving life, in the middle of nowhere.  AAAHHHH...

http://www.ozdoof.com/outdoorevents/OEF2002/index.html

Part 6.   Part 8

The Dirty Ole Irish Summer

It was the summer of 2002 – my Irish summer.

It’s strange to hear and even stranger to say but somehow for those three months despite living squarely in the dregs of Pacific Beach, I felt European, cosmopolitan, downright diplomatic. It is a strangely made world, sure enough, but nothing is weirder than the annual summer tradition that finds Krauts, Patties, Limeys, Russkies, and all sorts of bastard Europeans storming our American beach towns like a reverse Normandy and certainly San Diego is no exception. The thing is, normally they’re simply the waitresses at the local breakfast joint with cute little brogues working for cheap or maybe a couple rowdy drunkards yelling excitedly in a language that sounds almost like English but disheveled and disjointed. We see them and hear them but very rarely do we take the time to meet them and see their lives and why should we? They only come for the summer so a long-term friendship is out of the question. And very rarely do we see them being friendly in social settings, if we see them at all. No, they stay hidden, little Leprechauns and the such occasionally coming out of their hiding places to collect some gold from us squares and move on.

So it was with some vicious shock that I came home from visiting the past Colorado girlfriend known as VD in this blog to find a dark-haired girl sitting on a couch my roommate Brenny and I had put outside our apartment in our ghetto apartment in East PB, smoking a cigarette and smiling a warm smile. She spoke words and they sounded weird, like possibly some strange woodland nymph had descended on our happy shithole and when I discovered she was Irish I was immediately intrigued. Her name was Charlie, a right representative to be sure and after making introductions she took me to a one-bedroom next to us where a good 10 or so of these foreign bastards were holed up like possums in some goddamned den. It was overwhelming, all of these peculiar fuzzy foreigners packed into an apartment the size of a small drunk tank or possibly a large hotel bathroom. And thus began the Irish summer.

Brenny and I spent that night drinking with these grubby bastards, laughing at their stories and their strange words. After a little we couldn’t understand what the fuck they were saying but that was OK because their excitement more than made up for the lack of intelligibility of their spoken word. We had found the lair, the mother nest of the creatures and this would be our chance to learn about a different culture, a different people, to test that age-old theory that in the end all of us shared youth and joie de vivre and the universal language was booze. Apparently they’d all been staying in the Banana Bungalow hostel on the beach in West PB and I couldn’t help but admire that explorer spirit which sent them to the other side of the world with nothing but a bag and a dream. I ended up talking with one of them in particular, the posh bird of the bunch whose sunburn had matured into a native American tan, into the early hours of the morning and only slept for a few hours as the sun was taking its place in the San Diego beach sky. So began the Irish summer.

Most of them – maybe all of them? – went to University College Dublin, UCD, and they ran the rainbow from the D-4 cats, that is the ones from the posh part of town (I think it's called D-4, though I could be confusing that with a small punk rock band), to a couple heads from small seaside villages on the emerald isle and the rest spread throughout the Irish capital. I’d never met such a strange assortment of derelicts and drunkards and so naturally Brenny and I and our friend Luke quickly took to these cats and never for that whole season were we in a social setting without at least one Pattie by our side. Evetually the landlord found out a dozen aliens had turned the studio apartment into an auberge espagnole and so a couple of them even spent a few nights at Luke’s apartment down in Misison Beach or Brenny’s and my place in the ghetto. We took care of them for the first couple weeks, tryng to show them as much of the area and as much hospitality as possible, so much that they came to call us Grandpa Luke, Papa Ryan, and Uncle Brenny or something like that.

The first thing we noticed was that the girls swore like sailors and drank like pirates, a beautiful change from all the conservative, “drink a beer to fit in and that’s it” SoCal girls we’d grown accustomed to in our depraved little private college community. And they didn’t even have a television or cable or anything of that sort. No, nights were usually spent in that first place, named the hostel because it always had a couple new random Micks running through it, drinking booze and trading words. These bastards talked in groups instead of sitting around TV’s like zombies as tends to be the trademark of American gatherings. They would tell stories about their lives on the emerald isle and we’d tell them about our lives in America and we’d debate our respective countrys’ statuses in the world and then we’d all laugh as Daniel would get out his guitar to play some Radiohead and little Luke Kenny, Irish Luke, would tell stories that we couldn’t understand because of his thick speech but he would be crouched over like a small monkey and cutting out the fabric between the toes of socks shaped like feet as was his summer job while in the states and we were transported to another world while in their house. One of the girls, maybe Ruth the dark-haired girl with the sparkling eyes, would roll a joint with weed and tobacco and I’d cough as the harsh smoke singed my lungs. We felt like we’d descended into a Hobbit’s knoll, telling tales and drinking at an unhealthy clip with the strange little foreigners.

Other times we’d be at Brenny’s and my place listening to Red Hot Chili Peppers, the favorite band at the time of Yolanda, a white girl with a black girl’s name that Brendo called “Boomqueefa” to emphasize the fact that in America that name is usually not found outside of African American social circles. Liz would be dancing carefree and unencumbered by the self-consciousness that restrict most white Americans while Kat and Aoife – yeah, isn’t that a weird fucking name? – were normally a bit more subdued, talking on the couch, everybody constantly pounding the sweet boozey nectar of life. We did our part and introduced them to Beirut on the table Brenny and I had constructed from scraps we’d lifted from construction sites and police barricade sawhorses. We also introduced them to 40’s, to Country Club malt liquor that cost a buck fifty each and got you good and loose.

Sharon the D-4 girl and Joanne and Maggie, dear Maggie, moved down the street to another place we named the Brothel as it was a crowd of girls living together in near-squalor as such places were considered cathouses in certain geographic circles. Our nights consisted of hopping between the houses, drink in hand and everything was fine.

Jenny and Jill arrived a little after and moved into a one-bedroom in our little complex, rounding out the group with more good vibrations, never letting the fun die, never taking anything too serious or too personal because, fer fuck’s sake, what fun can be found in life when you let yourself be bogged down by such a boring hang-ups? I remember being near black-out and rolling around on the floor hearing spunky blonde-girl Jenny’s sarcastic biting humor or jamming out with Daniel as he horribly out-played me on the old git-box or Brenny stomping out the fire Charlie set on our living room carpet because the girls all insisted on smoking cigarettes inside our big house and who were we to say no?

There was a World Cup in Japan that summer and so one night the Irish dragged me and Brenny and Luke to Aussie Pub where they were holding special game viewings at 4 in the morning and my roommate and our college friend were the only Americans in a sea of green, white and orange. Somehow we did this without ampetamines, running instead on a steady fuel of booze and adrenaline and cheering along to “C’mon yah boys in green, c’mon yah boys in green, c’mon yah boys! C’mon yah boys in green” and “Ole, ole ole ole!”

They taught us phrases like going to “the offie” to buy beers and Joanne with her “smokey Joe” and “taking the piss” and “snogging” which actually meant making out but sounded like something you did with a fat grl at 1:45 just before the bar closed. The only words the girls taught me how to say in Gaelic (what they call Irish) were “Totu anaganaysuck” (sp – means “I think you are sexy”) “Pogmahone” (Kiss my ass) and “Slonche” (cheers) and so I told every girl she was sexy at one point or another.We probably taught them a few words too, though I can’t remember which.

We’d have movie nights at Brenny’s and my place, called the Big House because, well, it was bigger than the rest where we’d show them such American classics as “Dazed and Confused” or the banned-in-Ireland youthploitation ditty “Kids”.

Occasionally we’d go out to PB Pub or maybe one other bar that allowed the 19 and 20-year-old girls in using faked Irish driving licenses, funny since not a single one of the Patties could drive in real life – most of these strange folks don’t get their license until their mid-20’s. They just don’t need them and can’t afford them and it’s a beautiful, happy way to live I should think.

We took them on little field trips. One time it was to Peter’s uncle’s house in La Jolla while his uncle was away and we sat in his hot tub looking down the hill towards the ocean at Windansea and marveled at the differences to be found in the eternal class struggle. For San Diego American Luke’s 21st .Brenny and I rented a little wooden collapseable tiki bar to put on his patio and we hosted an epic soiret at his little beach bungalow against Mission Bay. The cops came that night and we learned the next day they had originally responded to some guy being shot and killed by a couple kids who wanted his bicycle just 100 yards or so away at the El Carmel street parking lot.

My first time ever to Vegas was during this summer, myself freshly 21 with 4 rowdy 19 and 20-year-old Irish girls - Sharon, Joanne, Aoiffe, and Charlie in tow. I was a Cutco knife salesman at that time, shamelessly hocking the sharpest of blades to rich SD housewives and corporate types alike, and one of my customers, a larger woman in her mid-40’s who made a killing in Real Estate, was so impressed by my presentation that she got me set up with her comped hotel site at the Hotel Paris. This handful of the Irish had insisted on going and who was I to say no? We procured a rental car and set off through the desert. It was me and the 4 girls speeding up the 15 listening to Godawful pop-shit with the occasional whiny U2 songs interspersed as U2 is God in the Emerald Isle and somewhere around Baker in the middle of the Mojave I wanted to drive off the road and call it a life. Moreover they were pounding beers the whole time but when I asked for one they told me no, I was behind the wheel. Apparently the Irish take drinking and driving a bit too seriously, although we did enjoy puffing on a blunt I’d rolled as the girls didn’t know how to crack open and re-roll a cigar.

It was a dirty drunken weekend and neither day did
we get to sleep before 10 in the morning. We didn’t gamble because they weren’t of age but the great thing was that although the casinos are tough to fake your Id at, the bars hardly even looked at the girls’ cards. It was a dirty little session in international debauchery and is probably deserved f a post all it’s own. But the girls did charge it, charged it as hard as if not harder than me and that’s quite a bit because I’ve been considered by many to be a drunk. I remember drinking into the wee hours and laughing with the girls.

They tried to teach me Pikey that summer, although Sharon always reminded me my Pikey was crap. American Luke was kind of dating Jill and usually had to leave his house early in the morning to go to his phatty job at Fat Boyz Pizza by the old Mission Beach roller coaster so he’d leave her cab fare back to PB from his MB house and she’d wake up feeling like a whore with money on the dresser and no man in sight. Jenny and Jill and such hung around with a group of losers from Michigan next door who Brenny and I’d had some run-ins with, a couple dirty fucking bastards with nothing going for them but the fact that they were still alive despite their obvious lack of value in any sort of somewhat intelligent society. In the spirit of International understanding I joined a couple Irish once or twice at the neighbors’ house, though, and tried to be friends with them. At least up to the day when one of the kids, all coked up, punched me in the face out of the blue, followed by one of his friends breaking a chair on my back and me having to fight up from the ground while a bunch of bitch-ass pussies from the Great Lakes tried to pretend they were hard and stomp me. When I got up and started swinging around savagely like some fucking bear looking to kill, they dispersed. Somehow the Irish girls convinced me not to do anything to them, although since then I’ve found myself much more prone to take my anger and aggression out on less deserving people, so thanks for the hate you fucking Micks!

Once or twice I went with them to Irish parties, usually bonfires or little house parties and all the guys would give me dirty looks and occasionally say rude things although the girls were nice enough. Once or twice the guys commented on my size or my muscles, how big they were and I got kinda embarrassed. Every guy had a shaved head and every girl had that sexy accent. It was disorienting and more often than not I felt quite unwelcome by the angry stares of the Irishmen.

When Kyle came out to visit we all went to Tijuana, to Safaris of course for the 10 dollar all you can drink special and a little south-of-the-border debauchery. I knew the trick about making friends with a bartender, Hector, and so every time I needed a beer I yelled to Hector and he back to me as I strolled up in front of the line and gave him a couple buck tip for two fresh lukewarm watered-down Tecates. The Irish girls didn’t understand freak dancing or even American swing dancing so I didn’t know what to do with them. Kyle was having the time of his life, a 17-year-old high school junior as he was. The sun came up and we all made it back to the border, him in one cab watching over 4 girls and me in another watching over the rest. We got split up and by the time I’d gotten back to my place Kyle had not yet returned. I began freaking out, wondering what happened to him back in the days before cell phones. I rode a bike at 7 in the morning with a swollen liver and a thumping skull to the nearest trolley stop to our place in PB, the stop by USD, and waited for another half hour to see if he was gonna arrive. Eventually I made my way back to the ghetto and found him passed out on one of the Irish kids’ couches.

A day or two later Kyle and I went with Yolanda and Aoife to Disneyland and rode every ride there that was worth riding after having breakfast at my grandfathers’ house in San Marino. We an around Disneyland boundless and unstopping from 10 AM to 11:30PM, stopping only for lunch, hardly even walking, catching everything, even the parade and the firewalks. During the parade I put Aoife on my shoulders like she was my little kid and it was a tru spectacle to behold. A night or two later, Kyle and her commandeered my bed and I was forced to sleep on my own couch like a bum.

Of course, though, the summer had to end. Our last night for the whole group being together I spliced together a bunch of footage to make the first movie I’d ever create, using two VCR’s and my old VHS recorder to capture and cut the footage with crudely-made title cards. One of my biggest regrets in life is that I let my roommate tape over it (it was fucking Damage, that bastard, and I’m pretty sure he taped over it with fucking “The Matrix”.) We watched the tape and got sad thinking about the end. The final countdown.

The next day I flew back to Baltimore for a week and picked up Luke’s new Ford Exlorer which his parents had bought for him. My mom and I drove it back cross-country, into a new adventure and a new world than the Irish summer I’d been previously living.

I got back to San Diego and a bunch of the girls had left; a bunch more were on their way. The numbers were going down, summer was ending and school was coming back. A last couple days of laying out in the parking lot, next to the couch where we'd first met Charlie and which some tweakers had set on fire in the middle of the summer, on an old mattress and boozing it up for the last few, sad nights. It was the beginning of the very end when our classmates from USD came to a party we were having with a couple of the Irish and Luke and Brenny and I realized it was one of the first times we were partying with more than one or two other Americans – we hadn’t noticed but the whole summer every one of our friends had a strong brogue and it had been kinda nice getting away from the American assholes that plague much of this country since it is, after all, America.

It was a strange summer. Our world had grown and at the same time shrunk a little. I fell hard for the posh bird of the bunch, partially because I was coming out of the ravaging relationship I had been in with the vile girlfriend VD, but it still hurt nonetheless when things didn’t really work out; that got awkward by the end. International relations were strained.

And then there was just a handful left and it was with bittersweet memories that we slowly said our
goodbyes over a last week. We assured them we’d come and visit, though that winter one of our main reasons for going up and got herself a boyfriend who might not have appreciated some tall, thick and deep-voiced ex-boyfriend American man and his average-height (which is tall in Ireland, apparently), angry musclehead friend coming to visit. After that life got in the way, money and school and careers and all the bullshit that bogs us down, limits what we can do and makes us choose priorities – Mammoth over Ireland, a year in Jackson Hole instead of a year abroad; buying a truck instead of a flight. All excuses, all of them bad and pointless though I do still plan on visiting those crazy cats some day, if they’ll even still remember me. And of course it's an amazing fact but planes do go West and I have a guest bedroom in Los Feliz in Hollywood always open for any guests, friends, and travelers.

Recently we’ve reconnected through the magic of the interweb, social networks and the such and it’s been great being able to check up on what they’re all doing, if we’re making good on the promises we made in our early 20’s about who we would be. I know I didn't mention much about each person in this post and this probably could have gone on for 50 pages or more, recounting everybody's quirks and their personalities, telling stories about random times and I know there were a couple ancillary characters who didn't get into this write-up and for that I'm sorry.

The thing is, in the end there’s little more that I could say other than I miss them, all of them. I miss the old days, the mindless liver abuse and the forties and the Beirut games and all the twisted little escapades that took place on Garnet, right next to the Subway in that dirty little apartment complex. Aging can make everything seem strange, distant – was that really 6 years ago? Jesus.

Time goes by and there’s no way to stop that. The best thing we can do is to try and savor every moment, to try and squeeze every drop of life out of our years. And if you happen upon a couple little foreigners lost in the States, looking for a good time and maybe a little mind expansion of their own, come to them with a beer in hand and a smile on your face and offer a friendship, despite how strange or grubby they may seem. Because that’s usually the beginning of a time in your life you’ll never forget – and a chance to go international while keeping your feet squarely planted at home. Summer's coming up - time to see what adventures you can conjure up, even sometimes without leaving your own back yard.

UR

P.S. - And Yes Jenny, I did use some of your pictures so there. Keep it real, homegirl.

New Zealand: North of the Southern Island

Continued from New Zealand: South of the Northern Island

My most recent post was about my NZ trip in the southern island. On thing I forgot to include in my posting in the southern Island was a sport called dredging, which is basically riding a kickboard down class three rapids. There were a few pussies who cried during it because they were scared but I thought it was fucking badass. So any way as I promised, this is the second and final part of my trip to New Zealand. The final week consisted of traveling around the Northern Island. Now it’s going to be a little shorter due to the fact that we were not there as long. We headed up to the Northern Island for the last week. We took a small rickety plane. Usually I don't fear planes or flying, but I almost shit myself. While there, we stayed in Auckland for most of the time, which is the biggest metropolitan city in the Country, in what must have been the business district. We stayed at a hostel filled with kids of all ages from around the world, with about four people in our room. After unpacking we had the whole day to see the sights and drink. We got pretty fucked up that night and I ended hooking up with some swamp doggy from the semester abroad. The next day was our first trip, which consisted of tubing in a cave. It was actually a lot more fun than it sounds, unless you are claustrophobic. It was almost pitch black except for little creatures called glow warms. Basically the hallucigonetic (not to be confused with hallucinogenic) feces of worms glow, hence glow worms. It was like being in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. We also had to wear 4/5 wetsuits since the water was fucking freezing. The rest of the day consisted of playing beach volleyball right outside of the entrance of the water flume ride and getting some sun.

The next day, we went to see the Maoris’. The Maoris’ are the natives of the country. They also make some badass rugby players. In fact, their national Rugby team, The All Blacks, is considered one of the most elite rugby teams in the entire world, full. They are all huge and jacked, like Polynesians but darker and with smaller bellies. They also have a pretty cool culture. Walking around one of their old villages, I realized that they lived such a simple yet full life. We also got to see them sing a few of their tribal songs, beautiful harmonies from a forgotten land.

We then went back to our hostel and passed the fuck out for a few hours, the pre-game warm-up. That night we got fucking ripped. The last thing I remember was some depraved New Zealand college kid orgy we had. There were about 4 girls and 3 guys reaching and rolling around, fucking crazy Penthouse forum shit. The next day was a free day in which we got to hang out and party. One of my boys, Old Stu was in Costa Rica and decided to come to New Zealand for a few days. We met up at my hostel and got after it. We got more ripped than Keifer Sutherland behind a wheel. That night we started drinking Absinthe at 6 and didn’t stop until we woke up the next morning in his hotel. He passed out on the couch and I on the floor under some table. The next day we grabbed some grub and hung out for awhile.

That next day we went on our final trek to an area full of crazy shit, an active schedule full of random fun at NZ’s expense. The first event was Zorbing. This is when a person gets into a huge ball and gets pushed down a mountain. They even had a Zorbing course. The next thing we were supposed to do was white water rafting, but due to the fact that it rained hard the water was above a class 5. So instead of this, we got to race small go-karts and rode off wheeling around some dirt course. It was cool, sure enough, but since I can actually drive a real car dangerously fast and crash into things, go-karting nowhere near the sickness of white water rafting. The final thing we did was hang out in a random, few-ride amusement park. I went on a zero gravity machine, which is essentially a giant fan that keeps you a float. This was pretty weak since half the time I was being pushed away from the middle where the real fun is.

That night we headed to Lincoln University, which is a college in the Northern Island. It was our last night there so we ended it strong, getting properly drunk and charging it hard. The next day we woke up, got our shit together and headed out. The trip on the way back all together took 27 hours. Luckily, it was Air New Zealand or I would have been fucking pissed. NZ is a great underrated country fully of amazing sights and endless things to do. I definitely am going to go back to go skiing.

Descent into the magical land (Outback Pt. 5)

I love reading my journals from this time, when the festival had actually started, and the feelings began to flow, because they are disjointed, distracted, or just plain missing. Sometimes when you are traveling, and really get yourself into something, you don't even have time to take a breath, to stop your inertia to reflect on it. It is an indivisible creation, a muon, or a string, or whatever the smallest particle is these days. Or maybe it is an atom, or a molecule, a fusing of disparate parts, but all swirling and vibrating and linking to form a greater energy than existed before. Harmonious disorder, quantum humanity.
As Taku and I traced a path toward the lights and sound, we began passing the fringe elements of the event, both animal and mineral. As at all festivals, there is no place that is not considered a dancefloor, so we snuck past moving bodies long before we could see the stage. We noticed the village area to our right, but decided to bypass the entry to reach the mainstage. We walked with wonder, stepping lightly, and scanning the scene as we proceeded with wide eyes and crazy grins.
"Ina!"
"Oru!"
"Haahahahhah, Taku, this is crazy. Sounds so good!" We were nearing the stages, and the bass was now really reaching our core. Soon it would be hard to communicate with anyone without yelling. WE somehow were smart enough to put a little bit of T.P. in our ears, which was eventually lost to the dusty dancefloor. Strange stretched cloth banners with holes in them glowed ultraviolet white, marking the fringes of the center stage. We were approaching from the extreme left of the stage, so couldn't see much, but occasionally a green laser would pierce through the early night and strike us in the chest, or squiggle on a space-butterfly frolicking with her friends nearby. The sound systems at these things, and the skill level of the musicians, are both overwhelming. Bass pulses could come out as wahing thump, and the synthetic sounds that accompany the downbeat will take you on little adventures in your head. We both began to walk-dance now, feeling fucking good, and now entering a fabulous parallel dimension called a fucking Eclipse Festival.
By random good fortune, we ran into the Brasiliernos on the edge of the main dancefloor. They were under the radiant rainbow lights, and under the anenome light spire that would twist to the beat, shaking its hundreds of glowing plastic arms, and under what must have been a clear, starry night, shining down on us all. We hugged and patted and smiled at each other, all linked hand to shoulder in a little drug-dance huddle for a while. Someone had already purchased one of those electricity balls that shoot lightning at your fingers when you touch them and of course its purple electric fingers, and its warmth, were popular with all.
It turned out that the BRA crew had done some acid, and were doing all right, but Adrianna was feeling a little ill, a little overwhelmed. Fabricio and Andre already seemed have their carinas, so I couldn't help but console her a bit. It seemed no odd thing to give her a neck and back rub, even as I bobbed side to side in my big shorts. We had a little mellow dance circle going when, low and behold, Sonya and Liam roll up, Sonja with her magenta-streaked dew and easy countenance, and skinny, grinning Liam, with his inconsistent chin stubble as sporadic and Taku's, with that Limey accent and deadpan hilarity.
"Hey!!" WE all shouted, but most of our communication was done via stomping and waving to the rhythm. From our spot we could see the DJ's now, bobbing away with one hand holding a headphone to one ear, and the other twisting dials and adjusting his fader, as well as the insane, computer-generated graphic displays taking place behind on the big screen.

I explained to S and L that Taku and I had ingested some inebriants, and they could too if they wanted. Neither had ever experimented before, but we decided a half each would be a good start to things. In a gloriously fun little ritual, we busted the sample in two, and they each threw back there heads and swallowed some precious H2O. We all grinned again.

Taku ended up finding one of his fire-dancing homeboys, and was headed to the firedancing area on the other side of the crowd. We planned to meet up, hugged, and off he went, smiling and jabbering excitedly in Japanese. Feeling the vibration more and more, letting the music thump into my cerebelum, I gazed around at this epic scene. It seemed we'd forgotton to pack our costume, but the other half of the dancing crowd had not, and sported wings, facepaint, scarves (or was it just in my head), if not crazy pants, moon shoes, and sparklers. It all swirled into the euphoric daze that is a trance festival on good shit, and I found myself shoeless, dancing with Adrianna. We hadn't spoken much, but there are stats on how much words really communicate anyway. Quite simply, we were destined to be each others' companions for these few short days in the desert. Our simple, in-sync jibs and jabs and stomps turned into a closer, private vibration. First our cheeks touched, sending those first shocks to the nervous system, the new skin of the opposite sex. We danced that way for a while before moving away. Everyone was in thier own little worlds, but still part of our little solar system among the spinning galaxy of people. I devolved into a bare-chested, barefoot, long-haired tribesman as the dancing warmed us all up. The whole crew seemed to also see that Adrianna and I would be a pair for this escape from reality-I was probably the last to know it; it felt so good just touching skin, I wasn't even thinking of the inevitable next steps. Slowly, our cheek dances began to be soft face skin mini-orgies, but slow, classy ones. When we finally slipped far enough back for our lips to touch, our minds turned momentarily inside out, and we just absorbed the whole moment for a bit, and the short day that we'd all had to bond, and what led us to this beacon of life in a desolate land. We pulled apart like surfacing from cool, clean water.
"It's amazing, no?" Adrianna said.
"It's amazing. Wow." We didn't have to talk too much, it was too loud, and we were already harmony, as we shared a Marlboro Menthol, and wavered from side to side to the rythem.

The night did not so much progress, as it evolved, being written in valiant fashion by our little bus and our connectivity. We moved our crew a little closer to the center, and it was there that the backbeat took a major switch, as a new DJ stepped in. This new groove had some laser to it, some bleeping, muted, digital loop that started out calm, and built. As in most electronic music, and especially new Trance, the beat, builds, and then drops, not down, but like a bomb, exploding in your eardrums and head, and squeezing out your most expresive moves and emotion. The crowd cheered our musical Dungeon Master as he gave everyone thier fix, telling our life with his beats. As the scene peaked, another familiar, and funny face appeared out of the crowd. It was Chick from OZ and he was wearing bug glasses and some sort of vest, and smiling at me. Shit, we were all smiling, or making The Blue Steel face as we twisted our wrists to the electro beats.
"Willie! Hey mate, how you goin?" Chick inquired, amused at my enthusiasm, and Adrianna on my arm.
"Great man, how are you." I, of course, gave him a hug.
"Stick out your tongue." Chick shouted.
"Wha?"
"Stick out your tongue!"
I did, and the young laddy opened a small metal vile, and placed a tiny square of paper on my tongue. A gift, from my new friend, that he deemed me ready to recieve.
"Holy shit man. I'll see you later? Whhooooooooo!" I put my hands up and jumped from foot to foot, my bare feet flattening the earth along with the hundreds around me. I turned back to Adrianna, took a few delicious drags of the menthol cigarette, and pressed my lips up against hers, sweet lordy, and we stood there, eyes closed, cigarette out to the side, swirling in the ethereal cosmic soup under the light of our good fortune.

In the thick of it. (Outback PT. 6)  Part. 4

Serendipity and the Beginning of the Show. (Outback part 4)

With multi-colored bills tucked in our fanny packs, and a box of groceries, our arrival back at the campsite was festive, if not dusty. After tucking our goodies into the tiny, respective corners of our tent, we headed out into the sun. I wore some random 40 inch waist board shorts, a white Tui Beer shirt, some sick grey Reef’s, and a yellow scarf to help keep the dust out my mouth. Some of our Brasilian brethren were at the tent circle, and we shared tokes with Fabricio, Adrianna, Layla, Donny, and (Kenny), who was from NZ, but was heading to live in China and work in his uncle’s arbotoir. That explained his goat toenail ankle Maraka. I chatted with Adrianna some more and bonded with the Brazil boys. Chick stopped in for a toke too, and after a bit, they meandered up and over the embankment toward the show. The first dj was just starting a set and the electro-goodness was beginning to saturate the red earth. Tak and I said goodbye to crew as we had something more important on our minds: drugs. It was approaching 4pm, we’d missed the opening ceremony a few hours earlier, but the first night was soon to be upon us, and we needed to get our heads right. The Herb put us in the right mindset for an unmapped, random, calling out to strangers acid/ecstacy mission, so we set off to the west. WE passed the first towering waterbarrel, and soon were inside the network of tents, campers, cars, caravans, and tarps-turned-into-hovels with hippies hovering inside.

So, yeah, we really walked around and calmly and methodically inquired, ”Drugs? Drugs? Anyone got some drugs.” The funny thing about festivals, is not one person gave us a look of ire. On the contrary, people nodded or pointed us in the right direction, and after engaging many dreaded, mostly international (I met two Americans the whole festival) desert-dwelling freaks, we came to the freakiest of all. We finally found a camper that we’d been refered to, and the door was open. A good many of the sites were vacant as the show was on, but the two in our little caravan were having thier own show.
”Hello?” We inquired.
”Fucking hell, what’s going on here anyway,” The dude shouted in a friendly but loud Ausie Accent to no one in particular.
”Hey mate, sorry to bother you? Have you got any E’s” The dude sat up from the bench seat and looked at me with an unsteady gaze.
”Wha? Oh, hey. Honey, these people want some drugs.”
”Oh shit, well I think their in your pocket.”
”No. What. Bugga. Here they are. How many you wont?” He pullet out a little aspirin bottle and somehow managed to put 4 pills in a plastic bag, and pass it to me.
”If you guys want any acid, I think theres some down the way with some liquid. Fucking great stuff.” Homeboy squinted with emphasis as he described the goods.
”Thank you so much mate, have a fucking good time!” The two were probably from Melbourne, as were most of the most at-home, almost local, crowd; Sydney was just a big ass city two days drive away. This was Northern Territory, not New South Wales.
They must have been lit of at least 2-3 different psychotropic, or otherwise inebriating, substances, but somehow found a way to sell me four tabs for $100 bucks OZ. Not a bad deal, from what I hear. This was at least enough to get us throught the first two days, and definitely sufficient for the night. We took our goods, feeling like prospectors whod struck gold, and carved our way back through the tent village, it was a little past five, sun was setting soon, and it was time to prefunk.
My experienced with ’hard’ drugs is fairly limited, but I put on my thiz face one time back in college when I was dating this raver chick, must have been ’99, and fucking hell it was a damn good time. Only in the depths or a roll do you, with lights pulsing like some sort of ethereal squid, and bass providing cadence for your heart, do you find pure extacy in being the meat a hug sandwich with a hot girlfriend and her bi-friend as bread. But, it is one of those transcendent experiences that has fused itself into my neuroprocessors, a permanently link created by chemical processes both organic and synthetic, but neverless real. I held the same freedom tablets in my right board-short pocket, and dependent on drugs as it may seem in retrospect, felt complete.
For those of you young, imagine, and those of you old, remember 22, and if you are able, your first year overseas-your hair is to your shoulders, only 1 in 10 friends is a Yank, your blood is running hot with the sun, you’ve found yourself sharing a tent with a grinning Japanese fire-dancer who shares your penchant for drug-induced adventure as well as your five-day shadow, and all you have to wear is a yellow scarf, a cheap grass sun hat, orange and white shades and shorts, and some sturdy Grey Reef sandals-not to mention the music has just started, the sun is setting, and you’ve got enough drugs to get ripped for a half day. Good fucking times.
Tak and I returned to the Tent to form a ceremonial ground for our pre-funk. With fading sunlight, he sparked the important things in a tent in the desert: incense, herbs, and a candle. With our bottles of water we ate the blue pill (or is it the red, you fucking Matrix nerds) and were on our way to being on our way. It didn’t take but one spliff, and some minor tent organizing, for us to start chatting.
”Do you respec, yo fatha?” Taku inquired, inquisitively, a serious look upon his countenance,” I thought for a moment, and then replied.
”Yes, I do, my father is a good man, I love him.”
”Hmmmmmm,” Taku pondered my response.
”Yeah, what about you? You respect your Father?”
”No, he did not run my grandfathers company well. He was greedy.”
”Hmmm.” I pondered.
”You will remember me? Can visit me in Japan” He smiled, stoney-eyed, and unusually happy.
”I will totlaly visit you. I wanna go to Japan. Gimme a couple years, and I will visit.”
”Hmmmm. Hi!”
The conversation flowed on for a bit, and we lost track of time. Somehow we made up a call response, which may mean something in Japanese, but I don’t know what. It went: ”Ina!” ”Oru.” just like marco polo, but way more fun. After a final preperatory spliffy, we exited the silvery two-man, into the warm dusk of the first night of The Outback Eclipse Festival. As our chemical compositions changed, we hooted and hollered at the night. Taku carried his firesword and some miscilanie in his backpack, and I carried a water bottle in my board shorts. We eyed the sky, and then patted each other on the back in enthusiasm.
”It’s OK to hug?” Taku asked.
I looked at him for a second, fully pumped to climb the hill seperating us from the party ground, and smiled.
”Of course you can Hug.” I grabbed the vertically challenged guy and gave him a bear hug.
”Face can touch?” He said in a muffled voice.
”Yeah bro, your my bro.” I pressed my temple against his and gave him another squeeze of love. It is amazing how satisfying simple physical contact can be whether or not your rolling, or just huggin the loved ones. Here we were, two lone travelers drawn together by fate, and ready embark on an adventure worthy of a short story, if only in the book of our souls. We clambered up the banks of the burm like the apes in 2001: A Space Odyssy, kicking up red dust on our way. Within moments, it appeared before us, like an glorius alien visitation, a colony of psychadelic art pulsating in light and sound, an organic, vegan oyster of international love and dancing.
”Hoooooooo!” our voices gained pitch with excitement at the sight of such a glorious playground.
”Ina?” I inquired, barely containing my jubilation.
”Oru.” Taku replied without looking over. We made one last crazy face at each other and started down the hill toward the mainstage, and the beginning of the show.

Part 3.  Descent into the magical land (Outback Pt. 5)

New Zealand: South of the Northern Island

Let me try and sum up my trip to New Zealand. It was an extremely fascinating country close to the end of the world. The thing that makes it stands out is how gorgeous it truly is. It is a new country that has all of the perks of Australia but non of the negatives. The main negative characteristic that NZ does hold is Americanization. NZ is a country that is not over grown with skyscrapers and developments. It is a country that enjoys the fact that lower key. We left the Philly air port and had a stop at LAX. Since Ryan and Becca were out there, I was able to meet up with them and go to dinner. It was a nice little 6 hour get away. I made it back just in time. After getting back we headed out on Air New Zealand. The flight took about 16 hours. Luckily they hook up with a shit load of movies, games, and reading materials. I also took a full pain killers that helped me pass out. Finally we arrived in Auckland Airport, and got on another one to head down to the southern Island. Finally we arrived at our destination. We stayed a school on the out skirts of Christ church. IT was so long ago, that I forget the name of it. The worse part was we stayed there for about a week . It was a nice school, most likely a small liberal arts academy on the outskirts of a nice metropolitan. It was about a 40 dollar cab ride to and from. We spent a lot of time there, between getting drunk at the local bar and heading in Christchurch. A great bar/club that we went to was the Holy Grail, which was fucking rad. It was three loft style floors with about 10 bars. They had a redbull vodka special. 2 for five bucks. One night I had about ten of them and it felt that I was blown up George Young style. We took some trips to the beach, where I ripped up my foot while walking in a cave. We went surfing too which was ok. The surf was pretty shitty. So the rest of the time we got drunk, went on a few excursions, watched a cricket match, which is boring as shit by the way, and hung out. The weather was absolutely perfect. Looking back at it, I don’t think it rained one day the entire trip. Out next stop in the southern Island was Queenstown, which could be on of the coolest towns in the world. It reminds of a sick ski town. This is when I became a man. I went bungy jumping there three times at three different locations. The first one was off of a bridge that would dunk you in a freezing mountain lake. It was great. The next jump was off of a little cabin that overlooked Queenstown. The different thing about this was that I got to run and jump off. This one was 144 ft. The third and the largest jump was the biggest one in the southern hemisphere. It had a 440 ft drop. The set up was crazy too. Basically, you are taken over on a small gondola to a huge gondola where you jump off. It was absolutely absurd. It was located between two mountains where a river ran. It was the coolest fucking thing in the world. Our next stop was at the San Josef glacier, which is a giant iceberg in a tropical Forrest. Apparently, this was where they filmed King Kong. Anyway, it was awesome and surprisingly dangerous...thanks Global Warming. While hiking on it, we actually heard some of the iceberg break off. The next stop was on the kipler trail which is one of the most well known trails in the world. It is a two-three day event depending on how fast you want to take it. It can even be a day hike if you run it. It was 3 days for us. We hike then relax at old lodges. The first stop was the best. The first day of hiking is all uphill, which took a toll on some people. The first lodge was over the tree line and over looked water. It was fucking gorgeous. We actually found a cave and went hiking in it. We went pretty deep. It was like from the movie Descent. I thought some vampire creatures were going to attack me. The next day was a hike through Lord of Rings Country. I could see the scene happen from my own eyes. It was a pretty fucking cool sight. The second place was at the bottom and filled with blood thirsty vampire mosquitos. The final stop of the trip was down at Karaoke, I think. I’m not sure if the name is right, but we went to one of the most southern parts of NZ. We saw some albatross fly around with their big fucking wingspan and some penguins up close. We also saw a bunch of fat fucking seals. In the southern island we went Zorbing, and swimming with dolphins. It was pretty fucking rad. Plus we got drunk and partied hard when able. The next story will be about the northern Island and everything that followed.

Gay Paree, the end of a Savage Voyage Through the Old Country: Conclusion of 5 Crazy Bastards on their First European Tour

Continued from Fiery in Firenze . . . and Goodbye to Italia

We get off at Bercy and decide to simply get a cab and have it take all of us to our address. So some guy in a smoking jacket and a cravat rolls up with a big van and is polite and kind and looks like a history teacher at a prestigious private school so we thank him and climb in. He says he’s going to give us a tour and we tentatively say yes but really we don’t know what to say because we don’t know if he’s taking us for a ride and charging us more money or whether he’s really genuine. No, we paid him in advance, the meter isn’t running so we sit back and enjoy the ride as he crosses the Seine and points out the gothic legendary Notre Dame Cathedral. We think nothing of it as he pulls in front of the Louvre and almost don’t notice as a police officer pulls him over and then we’re sitting in a cab bus, tired and dirty and smelly and overflowing with luggage while on our left is the legendary glass pyramid and on our right our driver and a police officer are yelling, occasionally pointing and glancing back at us and we wonder if we’re going to jail or if maybe the cop saved us from some Hostel fate and I curse myself for not learning French as well. Eventually the driver gets back in and says, in accented English, “It’s okay, I needed some new permit to drive through here and I didn’t know that.”

“Fine, fine, can you just take us to our hotel now.”

“Ok.”

So we’re in Paris lugging our 9 oversized luggage bags down some strange street and we go in to see if we can check in early since our train pulled in @ 9:30 but they say no so we ask if we can just leave our bags behind the front desk and the girl, a cute little teenager who is appreciative of Americans, says yes and we thank her, then take off down the street.

We find a little café where we drink coffees in the early morning air across from another gothic church, eating croissants that literally melt n your mouth and covered in honey and sugar and feel refreshed and energized.

Walking down the street again we pass a corner advertising “Learn American Wall Street English!” and the Grand Marnier headquarters and delicate little cafes and patisseries and soon find ourselves at the Arc de Triomphe, that greatest of war tributes and again I’m blown away by the size, the intricate carvings in it and the sprawling arches and the eternal flame. Tourists abound and it is a little annoying so we hope that the fact that we aren’t wearing khaki shorts like all the idiot American gapers sets us apart from them. In front of the tribute I look to the right and see the Eiffel Tower stabbing skyward over the tops of neighborhoods and it sinks in that we’re in Paris. The City of Lights.

We walk back under the street in the large walkway that allows us to cross over to Champs d’Elysee but it’s too wide and everything looks too expensive so we walk a few streets over to where we had been earlier and find a little restaurant to grab some lunch before arriving back at our hotel.

Beers all around and we point and pick and the waiter isn’t rude but he’s not overly nice and we decide to ask few questions as I order Frankfurters and Kyle orders Chitterlings.
I get a plate full of Oscar Mayer but Kyle’s meal, while it looks simply delectable, is a hideous concoction of intestine and other rank shit so it tastes just like that, shit and we decide that he’s the bravest person of the trip but he also ate the worst meal of the whole voyage.

So we hump our tired bodies back down the street and stop for another coffee, keep the ride going, and at the hotel our room’s finally ready so we tank them before loading Mom and Becca into the elevator, an old thin rectangle inside a gated vertical tunnel and you have to close both doors as it lurches to life and it feels like it’ll fall but it’s been around for years so it’s probably okay. As they ascend I print up the stairs next to it, up to our dorm on the third floor and I just barely lose to them and help the girls carry the bags into the room as I send the elevator back for Dad and Kyle to load the rest of the luggage and bring it up.

Finally in our large suite, with one room for the parents and a large living room with a bed and a cot for Kyle with large windows and a view of Parisian rooftops that reminds me of Amelie and there’s a whimsy in the air and although we’re tired and had been regretting this last day in France, now I’m thinking I wish we had longer here.

After a few hours of lounging, Dad napping while Bec and Kyle and Mom and I repack our bags since the different things we’ve bought and brought have gotten mixed up into every bag, we get cleaned up and decide to set off for our last night of sight-seeing.

(Another Gotan Project song)

So it’s down the street past a few designer stores and we walk down into the subway and take it to Tour Eiffel where we get off and we find ourselves on the left bank and Mom tells me that the left bank of the seine was supposedly a cool hipster place for locals and ex-pats alike. We find our way to a grand square where a lone skate is working on his 360-flips and olleying down a set of stairs and we pose for family pictures in front of the Eiffel tower during the day.

Then we walk down the stairs to a platform where a crowd of teenagers are practicing throwing different B-Boy moves, hurricanes and power stalls and one guy even spinning on his head as we pass a street accordion player echoing French sensibilities and cross the Seine.

I stare over the bridge and look at the difference between the quaint left bank (or is it the right bank? Can’t remember, time is always shifting) and the industrial commercial right bank so that it shows the great contrast between old world and new world that’s so prevalent in Europe.

We pass the street urchins trying to hock cheap models of the Tour Eiffel and some of them light up and while they say “Want the Bling Bling? The jiggy jiggy?” it’s amusing but annoying. Then we’re under the storied tower looking up and it’s again bigger than I thought, so amazing and dynamic of a testament to humanity and we think about going up but decide we want to wait until it’s dark so we can see all of Paris at night lit up and romantic and glorious. We’re not sure when that’ll happen, though, because it’s now 7 and the sun still burns bright.

We pass the Eiffel and through a well-manicured garden into a surrounding arondissement and we’re looking for a fine French meal as I’ve read so much fine stuff about Parisian Cuisine in my Playboy and our lunch left much to be desired.

We pass ornately-sculpted houses all packed in tight together so there’s an amazing feeling. We spot the most well-decorated McDonald’s I’ve ever seen and finally choose a fine corner restaurant and we walk in and everybody’s kind, hosts and waiters and we come to realize the idea of the asshole ignorant Parisienne is probably propagated by the same stupid overweight American Cultural Gapers who got W elected.

They show respect if you show respect and certainly some of them are probably rude but imagine if a Frenchman went to Georgia and tried speaking French as we insist on going to France and speaking English. Some redneck with the Confederate Flag flying off his camaro would tell them “Frenchie-Frog go on back home to ‘yer ‘lil France-land” and then they’d be afraid and think Americans were rude.

As we sit down and order a first bottle of Bordeaux I tell my traveling partners I could see myself moving to France because they’re the only people as arrogant and egocentric as Americans and so it should be familiar. As it is, the streets feel much more American than Italy and it is very nice here in Paris.

We order escargot and Becca and Kyle can now officially say that they’re eaten the amazing little crustaceans and even better, they can say the first time they’ve eaten snails was in Paris, a true feat to be sure. It’s a delicacy I love, with tons of butter and fine spices.

We order chicken and fish and steaks and it’s an amazing dinner which compliments the wine perfectly a perfect last supper of a wild whirlwind tour on par with National Lampoon’s European Vacation. Afterwards we walk back towards the Eiffel Tower and stare up as the lights come up in an epileptic fit of luminance and it’s wondrous to behold. Finally the lights are coming on and night is falling close to 9:45 and we wonder why until we realize that Paris is on the same latitude as Canada though it’s decidedly warmer here.

We try to go up the Eiffel Tower but a troupe of diplomats have apparently rented it out for the grand city views so it’s not possible and that’s just another thing we have to do next time we come. We go to cross the Seine again over dinner boats floating down the grand river with sumptuous meals and music being enjoyed by the wealthy under glass roofs and passing back and forth into the romantic night and we decide we want to do that some day and again lament that we don’t have enough time in Paris.

We walk back to the square where we first spotted the skateboarders and the B-Boys and take some final family shots that look ripped out of postcards from the French Tourist Board and we’re happy and together as Kyle runs down the stairs, the lone wolf of the voyage, for a perfect shot against the backdrop of massive illuminated pillars.

Finally we go back into the subway, passing another street accordion performer, and head back towards our hotel. A final jaunt through the street and we’re riding the rickety elevator up to our suite to fall hard asleep, our last night of the trip.

(Paris song is "Toujour Pas D'Amour" by Priscilla)

The next morning Bec and I wake up early and tired hugs are shared with the rest of the family as the girl and I take our couple bags out of the pile of luggage and then it was two, on the street looking for the Roissy Bus which takes people to the airport for a few euros versus a 60 euro cab ride.

We arrive at the airport but don’t know which terminal is ours so we get off and realize we’re at the wrong one and nothing tells us which one is the correct one so we have to get onto another shuttle to another terminal and it’s very frustrating navigating Charles de Gaulle but we do it and get through security and have a final meal of sandwiches and orange juices as we await our flight.

We get a brilliant view of Paris from the air and then fall hard asleep until we’re touching down in Miami where we change planes and have a final leg to LAX.

We touch down at night and page the shuttle to the long-term parking where we left our car and again think we’re in a foreign country as the cabbie is speaking a foreign language but it’s only Spanish and that’s just LA.

(The ride home is playing to Donavon Frankenreiter's "Heading Home")

We’re home, we tired, we’re happy, and our world has gotten a little bigger, as travel inevitably does. That is the value of such voyages to far off lands only glimpsed in picture books and National Geographics and movies and other cultural ephemera for the wanderer looking to change their worldview. Travel means getting out of your routine, trying new foods and meeting new people, experiencing things one is not privy too in their stagnant, sedentary lives. And I don’t think you can accomplish that by staying at 5-Star hotels, following planned tours and speaking only to the people looking to cater to English-Speaking visitors. Sure you may see a few things but you see them through tinted glasses that shield out the real cultural diversity of this vast world. It’s almost like a living picture book and while that is certainly more valuable than not visiting them at all, you miss out on some of the details and oddities only found through total immersion in these societies.

That was the beauty of this trip. Staying in a nunnery in Rome (which can be done by people even without connections, as many weary wanderers apparently rent out rooms at convents and monastery around Rome for cheap rates and with the knowledge they are supporting people who are truly at the heart of the old European world) to renting a car and driving to a part of Italy rarely visited by out-of-towners to a villa in a small fishing village to catching trains and busses and subways through all of these cities as the locals do. The colors you pick up on those experiences are the ones missing from everyday life and the ones that will stay with you long after a guided tour where you do nothing but gape at pretty buildings fades away.

Traveling at times should be difficult and trying and you should be forced to learn about the country’s customs and parts of its language before you go because otherwise you’re showing disrespect to your hosts and, fuck, as Americans we already have enough assholes painting for the world the picture that America is nothing more than a bunch of ignorant, pompous assholes. Look around, get off the beaten path, and try some crazy shit. I guarantee that despite all the difficulties and hardships of such things, you’ll be a much better person. As Thomas Fuller once said, “If an ass goes traveling he’ll not come home a horse.” So don’t be an ass. Of course you wouldn’t be if you read our blog so keep reading that too.

Hope you enjoyed the ride – because we sure did. Happy Travels! And remember, wherever you go, whatever you do, always look to get off the beaten path and leave the gapers behind.

Unkal Ryno

Closed out to "Time to Say Goodbye" by Andrea Bocelli

Fiery in Firenze . . . and Goodbye to Italia: 5 Crazy Bastards on their FirstEuropean Tour

Continued from The Fisherman's Coast that Time Forgot and the Pompeians that Time Froze

We were still chugging along at this point. We were tired, soar, and exhausted. We had seen so much already, but were in pursuit to see more. The next destination was to Florence, where we would spend the last night in Italia. We rented a driver to take us away from the hellish roads. These roads were made for only crazy Europeans with a pendant for danger. Even fucking Iron Man would be too much of a pussy to deal with these streets. We finally arrived in Napoli and I woke up to help us load our shit into the train platform where we had to watch out for sheisty gypsies who supposedly threw their babies at you and jacked your shit. I had passed out in the ride to my dad talking politics to the driver. Not only did he engage every single Italian, but he spoke to all of them about politics, which turned out to be pretty hilarious due to the fact that overall, I did not get the same sense of political concern.

The Italian countryside was nice and we were in a good mood, though tired when we finally arrived at this beautiful metropolitan area.

Continued in Gay Paree, the end of a Savage Voyage Through the Old Country

The travel song, winding through Amalfi and on the train to Florence, is again Manu Chao's "Denia" from his CD Esperanza)

We caught 2 cabs to our our hotel, which was pretty damn nice, checked into our rooms - a decent room for Ryan and Becca, a small dorm for me, and a grand suite for Mom and Dad overlooking the Piazza in front of our hotel, Pensione Pendini. After grabbing some good grub of florentine steaks and more fresh pasta and wine, we walked around eating gelato, window shopping for tight Gucci linens and took in the night.

After watching some street performer, Ryan, Becca, and I headed out. We went to a few good bars and ended up getting drunk and confused. After noticing a cute looking blond chick, I decided to stalk her like a lion on the prey. I eventually made contact. She explained that she went to the University of Florida and was on a semester abroad. She told us to go to some bar called Central Park. Being hopped up on booze and wanting to bang this chick, we decided to meet them. We took a cab ride to this fucking unbelievable place, using up almost all of our remaining cash. It was huge. There were about 5 different scenes, and about 10 different bars. There was an inside, which had techno blasting, the bathrooms and a bar. Outside consisted of a few bars and a bunch of different venues, with music that ranged from rap to rock. It actually overlooked a square, which was pretty sick. I eventually ran into the girl. We had a few drinks, cut the rug, and had a few more drinks. One different thing about this place was that you give them a card when you get there, then you get a card that marks off how many drinks you can get. On our way out, we tried to run past the pay counter, which was thwarted by a big motherfucker. We eventually paid. Then all of us took a cab to our hotel. Due to the fact that none of us really had any Euros besides the girl she ended up paying most of the 15 euro cab fair.

That night we headed back drunk, tired, and horny. Our crowd went back to Ryan’s room and had a few drinks. The fucking dike doorwoman came to the room since we were being really loud and waking the other guests and explained that I could not have any guest unless they paid 50 Euros. We headed downstairs to retrieve the money. My account was low so I pretended my ATM card didn't work and she ended up paying for it. After that we banged until we passed at around 4:45.

(The song in Central Park is the Arctic Monkeys' "I Bet That You Look Good on the Dance Floor" off of their CD "Whatever You Think I Am That's What I'm Not")

The next morning I was woken up by a knock on my door by my parents at 7:30. Apparently, we had to wake up early as hell to see David. I was dead tired and still drunk, but ended up kicking the girl out and heading there after I had a loud, sloppy croissant and coffee breakfast with Ryan and Becca also still drunk. David is truly an amazing sight to see. You turn a corner, and then it just kind of draws you towards it, bigger and more amazing than any picture could ever do justice.

We followed it with a tour around the city, on the Ponte Vecchio and the shops and all, me and Ryan and Becca dead and spitting fire from our hangovers and lack of sleep.

Afterwards, we ate and walked around a little bit more until our overnight train to Paris. In one of the piazzas I saw the man. He was an old fat dude who didn't talk, he just sat on a chair leaning against a wall and pointed at things he wanted like water or food and people brought it to him. He was my hero.

(Florence hungover tour song is Warsaw's "She Said" off of their CD "Battle Ska Galactica")

Finally we had to cab it to the Firenze Campo Marte Train station and while Ryan and Dad ran around looking for an ATM at the station to try and get cash to upgrade us to first class, I stayed with Mom and Dad to protect our bags from a group of short and stout gypsies who were eyeing us up and creeping ever closer to our shit. Finally the train to Paris came and we loaded on.

The first train experience had been great. We all had our own family place to sleep in which is hard to do. On this second one, though, we arrived in our room and in walked two smelly ass foreigners who must not have showered for about 2 months. God did they smell bad, like heroin addicts with gangreen or something rotten. After being in there for about 10 minutes, we booked it. We went to our parents room. Now they had two other people in there who were ok with us crashing their car, a polite French couple despite the stereotype. It was cramped but ok. There were six of us basically in a four person car, Ryan and Becca doubling up on one bed with about a foot of space for them to stack into. I finally reached my threshold and got into a shitty mood so I drank a little wine and passed the fuck out. The next morning, though, we got up, drank some coffee, and headed to the next destination…Paris, the city of lights.