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I enjoyed traveling on trains through the darkness of those mountains. When there was nothing else to do and I was tired of writing, I just stared at the passing shadows from the darkness of my compartment. I reached Lausanne early in the morning and walked into some confusion. Apparently the airport in Paris was on strike and that had a domino effect across Europe. Every form of information service had a line leading out its door. I noticed a young Finnish girl waiting in one of those lines. …
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We discovered that the prior day’s information was incorrect. There were no boats leaving today. We got our Sabbath’s mixed up again. We had already packed everything up and trekked the long walk down to the docks. At first I had doubt that anybody was talking straight. I always had to ask a few to get some comfort in confirmation. We managed to gather numerous alike answers and concluded that we were stuck there another day, fuck. …
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We divided up the day between Rembrandt and Van Gough. Sadness is Van Gough’s greatness and without his blood and wed of failures, such masterpieces perhaps would have never been put to canvas. I can relate to the color and texture of his turmoil and find myself too at times walking around in a daze. In contract his colors were bright and unique. …
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When I woke I could not shake that dirty feeling. I had felt cleaner waking up on the floor of train stations. It was early. The sun hadn’t come up yet and Jenni was planning on sleeping in, so I headed off to the ruins of Ephesus. That trek started out as a long dark walk. Luckily I eventually hitched a ride. When I reached the front gate the sun began casting long shadows but it was still very cold. …
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I picked up a pair of apples and a few candy bars for the trek, while Jim checked the train schedules. “Track four, ready to go” said Jim. After a minute or two with no train, it dawned on me that Jim most likely misread the schedules and picked the wrong platform. I retrieved the schedule from Jim’s bag, “I’ll hold the bags, you go check platform six” I bluntly stated. In the tunnel between the platforms I could hear Jim’s echo, “Its going!!” …
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I planned on taking a bus over to the ruins in Lindos but Jenni wasn’t feeling well and wasn’t too motivated to go anywhere. “I’ll see you tonight” I told her. The thought of missing something changed her mind and she decided to come along anyway. It was a nice sunny day with a cool breeze. A gorgeous little white washed village lodged under a Roman acropolis. …
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We ended up in Oslo’s train station an hour and a half earlier than we had originally planned. We had eaten and kind of ran out of touring options and found ourselves debating on which train to depart on. One train left at eleven and the other at midnight. Jim was having another one of his bad days, randomly complaining about everything and anything that came into view. I wasn’t up for spending much time sitting in this vacant station with only Jim’s attitude to entertain me. When the first of the two trains arrived, Jim walked the length of the train while I watched the gear. “There’s no first class, so let’s wait for the next one” Jim demanded. …
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I wasn’t sure if our bus could make the trip but luckily Bethlehem was not that far of a ride. Bethlehem was rather small and unexpectedly vacant. Typically I liked to walk around the outskirts and then worked my way back toward my destination. That gives me a better feeling of where I am. The church was also empty and there was nobody inside its wall but the two of us. It was kind of a shell of a church with an altar at the far end. …
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As we approached Salzburg the clouds parted and the sun came peaking through, signaling that a good day was ahead of us. In one of the travel guides there was an interesting youth hostel alongside a casino. I knew from my last visit to Salzburg, that the hostel had to be on the cliff overlooking the old city. Once our train arrived we headed straight toward a phone and contacted the hostel to see if rooms were available. Good news but we had to be quick because they did not take reservations. …
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With the crack of dawn we were up to conquer the monster. We had taken the first train into the heart of the Jungrau region, Grindelwald to the base of the Eiger. We surveyed the landscape against a local map and selected the West slope since it was opposite from …
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There were no hedges, nor fences, in the bare and uniform countryside leading into the Netherlands. We were heading back into the crossroads of traffic back into the circus they had named Amsterdam. I could see no natural boundaries that separated the courtyard from the jester. …
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We entered a compartment that could be best described as humorous. There was a young lady traveling by herself, who had spread her clothes from one end of the compartment to the other. This was orchestrated to persuade us to look elsewhere. We just laugh since this was a technique we often used to maintain our privacy. We found it amusing to watch her reaction to our comfort. She acted as if her mother unexpectedly allowed her new boyfriend into her unmade room. …
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Our rail passes provided free passage on numerous lake cruises, so we decided to take advantage. We gathered up the ingredients for a day out on Lake Zurich. Opened up a cold beer, claimed a table with a view and broke out the cards to continue the cribbage marathon from the night before. What a perfect day it was to be out on a lake. There was just the right mixture between the warmth of the sun, the coolness of the breeze and the temperature of the beer. Man some of these homes that line the lake with their manicured yards and adornments screams money. …
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I woke from a dream, fixing my eyes on the unseen shadows of the dark room and began tracing the steps of the dream that had just left my grasp. I got up, sat at a table in the corner of the room and stared out at the moon. …
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Took a morning boat to Giudecca to visit a glass shop and took advantage of the weather and the sand. The hostel I went to check out was over crowded with mostly children running about, so spent the remains of the day back on the main island. Before dark I had gathered up my things and boarded a train towards Padova. Across from me sat a beautiful young lady with a twinkle in her eye and I caught a smile or two. Sex was in the air so I broke the ice. …
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