No smoking on the train

Traveling is not always as easy as getting from point A to point B. Sometimes you get on a train and everything seems normal until suddenly there’s smoke pouring in the windows and you wonder if a local house is on fire. Then you realize that it’s actually your train that’s on fire and the thick, black smoke filling the air is coming from somewhere underneath your car. You sit calmly listening to Sun Kil Moon on your iPod as the train comes to an abrupt halt and engineers pile outside and stare at something very important near the tracks below your car. A pair of aged, wrinkled ladies, one sporting a tiny lapdog in her purse, peer out the window and speak in hushed Italian mumbles, glancing at you occasionally to see if you understand.

Finally the train starts again, but it’s running late so it skips your stop and drops you off in a town called Solerno. This is not where you want to go and you say to the conductor, “What about Naples,” but he is busy and doesn’t care and tells you to take bus number four to Pompeii and figure it out from there.

So you stand outside the train station in Solerno and wonder where in the hell you are and how one goes about getting to Naples.

At the bus station there are seven men in blue uniforms standing outside a small, dingy storefront eating ice cream cones, making loud, crowd-pleasing jokes in Italian. You ask one of them for help and he tells you to take the number fifty bus to Pompeii. “It’s a blue bus and it comes at 4:00,” he says. You look at your cell phone and the clock says 3:35. You were supposed to be in Naples at 1:45 to take the train to Sorrento. Instead you’re in Salerno and you haven’t eaten anything since 10:30 and your water is running low.

“Where does the bus stop?” you ask the man with the ice cream cone.

He points. “Sometimes over there and sometimes over there. I don’t know.”

There are buses everywhere: orange, blue, short, long, parked, moving. They layer each other, stacked side-by-side, making it impossible to read their crucial little numbers. You sit on the ground next to the station and eat a piece of bread from a stash in your purse. How am I in this place? you wonder. Just fourteen hours earlier you were on the roof of a fourteen-story apartment building in Rome watching from a candlelit corner as drunk, Italian Buddhists danced to salsa music and ate pasta from paper plates. Is this really my life?

Eventually bus number fifty pulls up and you ride it for an hour until arriving at the train station in Pompeii. You get on the train, pray that it doesn’t start smoking, and wind up fifty minutes later in Sorrento. Four hours late and much patience lost, you locate your hostel and collapse on the bed, ready to sightsee in a brand new city. Though it requires little more than sitting and staring out a window, traveling is exhausting and often eats up the entire day. But you really can’t complain because in the end of the day it’s fiery trains and meandering buses that will always get you where you need to go.

First sunburn of the year

If you’ve ever had a burning desire to get hit by a car, Rome is the place to do it. The traffic is insane in this city, with no lane markers and seemingly optional stoplights. Motorcycles and automobiles whiz by at ridiculous speeds, careening around corners just as you’re stepping off of the curb. It’s us versus them and you’ve got to cross the street with confidence or they’ll take you out like a bowling pin, never looking back as you wobble back and forth.

My first day here, I took on a dark blue sedan. He saw me coming from a block away, walking briskly across the street. I was in the crosswalk, which technically means that he has to stop, but this is Rome and the rules don’t matter, so he stepped on the gas and flew in front of me, blowing a smug kiss out his window as I jumped back, barely saving my toes from being crushed under his tires.

Perhaps it’s the scenery that brings out all of the drivers. It’s impossible to go anywhere in Rome without running into ancient history. Sometimes it feels sort of silly. Oh look, the Colloseum … oh look, Burger King … and there’s the Vatican … surrounded by a hundred little tourists shops … should we go into the Gap after looking at the ruins?

Slowly ancient history is becoming modern, with elaborate information booths built into thousand-year-old monuments and hotels encroaching on tourist hotspots until one day you might be able to rent a room in the Pantheon or have breakfast in the Pope’s royal bed.

I was a good tourist today, eschewing public transportation in favor of walking bravely alongside hurtling automobiles and endless wailing ambulances. I saw most of the important things that people say you need to see and my feet were aching by the time I got back to the hostel. Tomorrow morning I leave for Sorrento and I’m excited to hang out in a smaller town with less tourists and more room to breathe. If I can make it out of Rome without being hit by a bus or crushed by a car, this trip will have been a success.

Eternal closing time

Here’s the thing about Italy: everything is closed, all the time. You want to go to the supermarket and get some dinner? CLOSED. Doesn’t seem to matter that it’s 5:00 p.m. and they’re losing tons of money by closing so early. Or maybe you want to go to the clothing store and buy some socks? No can do. CLOSED. Even though it’s only 3:00 p.m. and there are tons of people milling about, willing to buy stuff.

It’s kind of driving me insane. I went to an Internet café in Florence and had to give the receptionist my driver’s license as a deposit to use the computer. Naturally, the café was closing in five minutes, so I quickly checked my email, paid and ran out, leaving my I.D. behind in the process. I figured no big deal, I’ll stop by and pick it up tomorrow. But at 10:30 a.m. the next day, as I as was rushing to get to the train station by 11:00, I stopped by the Internet café and of course, it was closed. Staring at the front door for five minutes, I searched for a non-existent store hours sign and thought about how annoying it’s going be to have to get a new license. I eventually accepted the fact that pressing my forehead against the window was not going to magically open the store and I headed in the direction of the train station. Luckily, as I was huffing and puffing my way across the main bridge in Florence, I ran into my Australian friend, Xanthe, who I’d met at a hostel in Venice. I immediately started bitching about the internet café and my lost I.D. so she offered to stop by the café later on, retrieve my I.D. and mail it to Minnesota. Hopefully this will happen.

Italy is really awesome and I’m having a fantastic time in Rome, but the hours kept in this town are ridiculous. I can confidently say that nothing here is open longer than two or three hours at a time. It’s sort of killing me. I’m not sure how people manage to get things done, but somehow they do.

Key of G

I just wandered around Rome at two in the morning playing the harmonica.

It was awesome.

The plan, of sorts

Today officially marks my last month in Europe. Less than a month really, if you consider that one of those weeks will be spent in London after my Eurailpass runs out. So I’ve got three weeks left. I’m in Florence right now, heading to Rome for six days tomorrow, and I think I’m going to go to stay in Sorrento for a while and make day trips to Capri and Pompeii. I was considering going to Greece, but it would take over 24 hours just to get there, so I’ve decided to save that trip for another time. Instead I’m going to head north and visit Nice, Salzburg, and Berlin before spending a weekend in Frankfurt with Philipp. Then it’s back to London for a week to unwind, mentally prepare for returning home, and buy some souvenirs with what little money I have leftover.

Junior isn’t going to be happy with me. He’s been sending me emails asking when I’m coming to Madrid because I sort of promised him that I would. But Madrid is so far away and I don’t have time to trek all the way to the middle of Spain just for a few days. I hope he understands.

Famous last words

“Dude, I’ll hang out with anybody. I don’t care. As long as they can put up with me, it’s cool.”

I was cocky before I left for Europe. I was convinced that everyone would be wonderful and fun – we’re all just a bunch of reckless travelers with everything in common and a few days to kill, so it’s all love all the time, right?

Hah. Not so.

I’m quickly learning that, in each city I visit, it really does matter with whom I choose to spend my time. Amsterdam and Prague were tons of fun but they can’t even begin to compare to cities like London, Barcelona, Vienna, or Hamburg simply because the friends I made in Amsterdam and Prague were either a) really boring, b) really annoying, or c) the kind of Americans that I hate.

It’s easy to make friends in hostels. Like, really easy. One barely has to put forth any effort and suddenly people are offering to share sandwiches and conversations are sparked in the hallway. Everyone is there to meet everyone else, so it’s never awkward to chat up a random person with a backpack. This is really awesome for obvious reasons, but sometimes the abundance of people and your own desperation for friends can result in a night of wanting to rip out your hair or set people on fire.

I’m not complaining. Rarely does poor company ever ruin my experience of a city. But each time I meet someone with whom I have a great connection, it overshadows all the days spent with not-so-great people.

Take today for example. When I arrived in Cinque Terre, a tiny cluster of villages on the east coast of Italy, I immediately befriended my two roommates, Jack and Brock. Tan, dark-haired, athletic guys from San Diego, they’re definitely not guys with whom I would normally associate. They’re macho and boisterous, make way too many dick jokes, and constantly brag about banging chics. They throw beer bottles over beautiful, scenic cliffs just to hear the glass shatter on the rocks below. To further illustrate my point, here are a few quotes from Jack and Brock that I’ve collected over the past 24 hours:

“Dude, I hope I don’t run into that girl in Florence. She was all pissed off at me because I wouldn’t go back to her room and cuddle, but she wasn’t going to let me fuck her, so I just walked off and said ‘Later.’ She did suck my dick on the rocks though so HA HA HA HA HA.”

“Yes! George Bush! Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about. Nice work, Bush.”

“I wanted to be an inventor, but … I dunno.”

“Fuckin’ faggot.”

“What the hell are ‘Somalians?’”

“You ever been to Oakland, bro? Don’t ever go. It’s all black dudes who’re like, 6’7”.”

”Nah, I don't miss those girls. Time to move on to bigger and better ... actually, make that skinnier and better. HA HA HA HA HA.

Are you starting to understand my dilemma here? I want to be nice to everyone and make lots of friends but sometimes the only people around to meet are ones who SUCK REALLY BADLY.

I could tell within thirty seconds that I wasn’t going to like Jack and Brock, but I decided to give them a chance and enjoy my time in Cinque Terre despite being surrounded by sexism, chauvinism, perversion and ignorance. They weren’t too keen on me either - mainly because my behavior is not in line with that of a Girls Gone Wild video - but I have breasts and I’m their roommate, so they’ve made an attempt to include me in their tourist activities.

It hasn’t been all bad. Jack and Brock arrived in Cinque Terre a day before I got in, so they were able to show me around a bit and point out things like Internet cafes and pay phones, but now that my visit is essentially over, I can’t help but wish I’d done most of my touring alone.

We met a pair of Canadian girls in the street on my first night in the village and I immediately invited them to our hostel for dinner, hoping that some new pheromones would dilute all the machismo in the air and give me a couple of allies. Unfortunately, Camille and Sara turned out to be the type of girls who adore third grade humor and don’t mind being reduced to a pair of tits and ass. I sat on the sidelines as a cast-off fifth wheel and watched as the four of them discussed drinking and how much they can drink and what kind of drinks they like to drink and how long they’ve been drinking and isn’t great to have drinking in common. Topics even resembling intelligent were never broached and I’m pretty sure I was marginally stupider by the end of the evening.

The next morning we woke up early and set off on a ten mile mountainside hike along the Mediterranean Sea. Given that I've never hiked along the Mediterranean Sea before and it was largely uphill in 80 degree weather, I wanted to take my time and snap pictures every so often. Apparently, this is an impossible concept for 22-year-old, strapping young men to grasp. Jack and Brock felt an inexplicable need to RUN up the entire mountain. Forget stopping to enjoy the picaresque, unforgettable view. Forget picnicking on a cliff or sunning on a boulder. They had to be the fastest hikers on the mountain, zooming past gobs of tourists as if Paris Hilton herself was waiting at the end of the trail ready to fulfill all of their smuttiest fantasies.

I lagged behind, slamming water, trying not to faint, and tried not to think about how much more fun I’d be having if Jack and Brock were magically replaced by Philipp and Felix. We finished the hike, took a dip in the sea, and laid on the beach for a few hours. I listened to Belle and Sebastian on my iPod as I got a full-body massage from a perky Chinese lady and tried to ignore the giggles coming from Jack and Brock who were beyond entertained by the sight of a woman rubbing another woman.

We headed back to our hostel and I promised myself that never again will I commit myself to the first person I meet in any given city. Sometimes it works out well and I end up having a great time, but all too often, spending too much time with people who suck can really hurt my impression of a place. My memories of the countries, cities, and hostels I’ve visited have become a smorgasbord of names and faces from all of the people I met while I was there. Usually there are one or two individuals who stick out in my mind and unfortunately, it’s not always in a positive way. But I’m still learning as I go and I’ve got a month more to get things right. Hopefully the suckitude has hit its highest point and will only go down from here.

Sidenote

It only been two months, but comment spam has found its way to my blog. I was wondering when it would finally happen and now it has. Just ignore it, I guess. I'll try to delete what I can, but there's quite a bit. If it gets too out of hand I may have to disable anonymous commenting, which would suck, but such is the nature of the Internet.

Brazilian magnet

When I was preparing to backpack around Europe everyone who’d done so in the past told me that I would meet tons of people. They claimed that there were oodles of travelers all over the continent doing the exact same thing that I was doing and I would likely find people with whom I could hop from country to country. Things didn’t turn out exactly that way; I’ve met more people than I can count, but so far no one whose schedule matched up enough with mine so that we could cross borders together. Until now.

I honestly don’t remember meeting them, but Marcus and Philippe are two Brazilians who’ve been traveling across Europe in the exact same path as I, staying at the exact same hostels, at the exact same time. They claim that we met in the large, 18-person dorm room that I stayed in when I was in Amsterdam, but I talked to so many people when I was there that our brief conversation doesn’t stand out in my memory. After Amsterdam the three of us traveled to Prague, but stayed at different hostels so we didn’t run into each other. But after Prague, they spotted me walking down the street with Liz outside our hostel in Vienna.

“Don’t we know that girl?” Marcus later recalled saying to Philippe.

“Yeah,” Philippe answered. “We met her at our hostel in Amsterdam.”

“Huh. I wonder if she was in Prague before Vienna like us.”

A few days later as they were riding a train to Venice they discussed the possibility of running into me again.

“What if that girl is at our hostel in Venice?” Philippe said. “That would be too weird.”

“There’s no way,” Marcus said. “Amsterdam, Vienna and Venice ? No way.”

But there I was, sitting in the lobby waiting to use the Internet, when Philippe strolled downstairs and spotted me. I didn’t notice him, but he immediately turned around, marched back up to his dorm room, looked at Marcus and said two words: “She’s here.”

Marcus instantly knew what he was talking about and laughed for fifteen minutes straight. They talked about the possibility of me being a ghost or even a stalker. “I wonder if she’s going to Florence and Rome too. Oh my god,” Philippe said. “I can’t believe that out of all the hostels in Amsterdam, Vienna, and Venice, we’ve ended up at the exact same ones at the exact same time.”

Later in the evening as I was walking down the hall to my room, I saw Philippe walking toward me. He smiled and said, “Hey! Can you believe it? Amsterdam, Vienna and now Venice!”

I looked at him and knew I had met him somewhere, but could not place him for the life of me. “Yeah …” I said, trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about. “Were we at the same place?”

“Yes!” he said. “We met at the hostel in Amsterdam and then again in Vienna and now we’re at the same one in Venice!”

“Ohhh,” I replied, embarrassed that he remembered me and I didn’t remember him. “That’s crazy!”

“Were you in Prague after Amsterdam?”

“Yep,” I said, “Stayed at Atlas Hostel.”

“Oh my god, we were in Prague at the same time too! You’re following us, aren’t you?” he laughed.

“No – you guys are following ME!”

That evening the Philippe, Marcus and I sat around a table on the deck of our hostel and marveled over the fact that we’ve been unknowingly traveling together for the past three weeks. They told me that they’d had several discussions about me and noticed that I make friends really easily because they never see me without people around. I admitted that I don’t remember meeting them at all, but that they certainly look familiar. We exchanged stories and they told me at which hostels they’ll be staying in Florence and Rome, so there’s a possibility of meeting up again in the future.

Stuff like this blows my mind. Not only have I been following the exact same path as two other backpackers in Europe for the past three weeks, but they’ve been completely aware of it the entire time and had discussions about me on numerous occasions. How often do you get a chance to find out that strangers have been contemplating your existence? It’s nice to know that I’m not completely anonymous over here. It may have been in a strange way, but at least I know I’ve made an impact on someone.

Stupid Americans, part 1

In which I recall the various moronic things I've heard American tourists say during my trek across Europe.

Girl in Vienna: "I'm like, actually European. I mean, I know I'm from America and everything, but I'm totally European. I just feel it, y'know? I'm so European!"

Guy in Barcelona: "Dude, I was so wasted. Like, you don't even know how wasted I was. You've never seen someone so wasted. Seriously. You don't even know. I was so wasted. Wasted wasted wasted wasted wasted wasted."

Guy in Prague: "You can tell someone's European if they dress like a queer."

This is only the beginning. I hear stuff like this everyday. Stay tuned.

Venice

It’s the most beautiful city I’ve visited thus far - like walking into a postcard around every corner. The streets are a maze of narrow, cobblestone paths flanked by crumbling, antique buildings with balconies draped in flowers and shutters framing tall, arched windows. The canals are deep and wide with an endless stream of gondolas floating by in every direction, sending ripples down the placid, green water.


The pigeons are the most aggressive and fearless I’ve seen on my trip, enticed by tourists who buy bird seed from vendors and throw it on their children, laughing as they’re engulfed in a flurry of slate grey feathers and pointy beaks.


There are museums to tour and churches to visit but I’ve grown bored with the usual sightseeing charade and prefer to spend my time taking pictures of empty bridges and writing on a bench in the plaza as the old man to my left stares off into space and the birds peck at my feet.


I’ve been trying to imagine what it would be like to have each of you here, seeing this with me for the first time. What would you say as we stroll down dusty alleyways and eat ice cream cones next to the sea? Would you feel overwhelmed by all of the people and want to hide out in a café until the rush dies down? Or would you be flooded with adrenaline and nudge me to walk faster so that we might see a dozen sights before the sun disappears?

I suppose I can only base my new experiences on the ones that I already have and therefore a lot of my thoughts wander to home even when I’m exploring a new city. So even though I’m not homesick and I’m constantly meeting new people, the faces of those I left behind are still very much a part of my day.

Intervention

Europeans seem to have a serious problem with public urination in that they do it all the time. During the past week alone I have be witness to not one, but two separate instances of broad daylight, out-in-the-open, middle-of-the-street, public displays of male urination.

The first occurrence was in Prague. I was walking down the sidewalk on my way to the Museum of Communism (which would certainly never tolerate public pissing), weaving my way around gobs of tourists, darting around trees, stepping over tiny dogs, when I nearly collided with a stream of yellow urine pouring out of a twelve year old boy. He was just standing there, in the middle of the sidewalk with people all around, peeing against a small tree. There was nothing blocking his nether-regions, nothing providing even an ounce of privacy, nothing preventing the world from seeing that this boy is apparently not Jewish. I glanced at his face as I scurried past the golden stream and he seemed completely unfazed by the fact that not only were his genitals completely exposed to the city of Prague, but he was essentially emptying his bladder for a crowd of fifty people. Stage fright never even entered into the equation.

My second run-in with foreign pee happened within hours of my arrival in Vienna. I was walking from the train station to my hostel and passed a man standing in front of a trash can in the park next to the station. He had his arms in front of him and his head turned down, but somehow these warning signs didn’t register with me because well, who pees against a trash can next to the train station? This guy! Yet again, there was nothing blocking the world from viewing all that god gave him and tons of people were scattered around within feet of his junk, but the guy remained unconcerned. Fortunately, I was ready this time and immediately looked away upon seeing the stream, thereby saving my eyes from what would undoubtedly have been disgusting.

Given that I’ve become something of an expert on the topic, I’ve developed a theory regarding the prevalence of public urination in Europe. You see, no one told me about this prior to my departure, but I’ve quickly learned that public restrooms are often not free on this side of the world. One can be forced to pay anywhere from fifty cents to three dollars simply for the privilege of not wetting one’s pants. And I can assure you that digging around for bathroom change is rather irritating when there’s a thirty pound backpack pulling on your spine and a liter of water sloshing around in your gut.

So, perhaps European men are leading the revolt against water closet fees. Maybe each time a fly is unzipped and an innocent bush gets a shower we’re that much closer to revamping the urination system. I just wish there were a cleaner, more organized way of bringing about change. In the meantime, I’m keeping on the lookout for any and all stray streams of yellow liquid.

Cancer babies break-up marriage

Perhaps it’s because we’re vulnerable and exposed as travelers or because most of the people I’ve met on my trip are open and eager to talk, but I’ve never learned more about people in such a short amount of time than I have in the past seven weeks of traveling. I’ll meet someone on a train in the seat across the aisle or sitting on a bed in the dormitory of a hostel and two hours later secrets come pouring out. Once the first question is uttered – usually “Where are you from?” – the friendship has been established as temporary. Someone to cling to for a half an hour or three days or however long your journeys overlap. And in that time, as much information as possible must be exchanged: Where have you been? Where are you going? What have you seen? What’s your favorite place? When do you go back home? Are you traveling alone? Flying or taking trains? How do you afford it? The questions go on and on but eventually they lead to something deeper. Something that usually cuts closer to the reason why people are traveling. No one will ever admit that it was anything more than a brilliant idea made reality with a plane ticket and guidebook, but after talking for a while bits of their lives start to seep out and I can piece together what brought them to this hostel, this train, this conversation.

Sometimes it’s not hard to figure out. There’s Angelina from Russia who after two hours of conversation and a shared ham sandwich told me that she had cancer four years ago and recently found a lump in her breast. We met on a train in Spain on her way home from Russia where she was supposed to have seen a doctor but got scared at the last minute and didn’t go to the appointment. “I’d rather not know,” she said as she lay on the bunk across from mine, staring up at the ceiling. “My boyfriend’s going to be so mad.”

And then there’s Nikki and Nathan, an Australian couple I befriended in Amsterdam. We met in a huge, 18-person dormitory at the hostel and wandered around the city together, dodging bikers and peering in coffeeshops. I learned that they were together for three years but broke up three months ago and decided to travel together anyway. Though I only knew them for two days and never even found out exactly why they broke up, I could tell that Nathan was still in love with her and Nikki loved him back, just not in the same way. It was kind of painful to watch.

And of course there’s Logan, the neurotic graffiti artist from Vancouver. I found out within a half hour of meeting him that he has a newborn daughter back home who was adopted by a couple down the street in Vancouver. He can see her anytime he’d like but has chosen to travel around Europe and get her name tattooed on his arm instead. The tattoo always sparked lots of questions and I listened to him awkwardly explain his daughter’s adoption many times.

Then there’s Laura from Mexico. I knew her for less than two weeks and we could barely communicate with one another, but by the time I left Madrid she’d told me that she was thinking about leaving her husband.

Maybe it’s because they know they’ll never see me again. Or maybe they just need some sort of brief, close connection with another person while traveling. But something in these people drives them to spill it all. They confess their secrets over sandwiches on a night train and divulge their innermost fears while sharing cigarettes on the roof of a hostel. They burn their stories into my brain and become more than just bodies with backpacks, but people from real places with real histories and real problems. I can’t forget about them now. Now that I know about her cancer and his baby and their break-up and her marriage. But what they might not realize is that this is all I’ve got. Realistically, I’ll never hear from these people again. We’ve long since traveled on and had new experiences and met new people and the past has started to solidify into one unchanging memory in our minds. Angelina will forever be on the brink of having cancer. Logan will always be a father away from his baby. Nathan will continue to love Nikki and Laura will remain wanting to leave her husband. But oddly enough, that’s exactly how I want things to stay. These are my Europe memories and they’re perfect. I’m not stressed about keeping in contact with everyone after I’m gone because all I ever really needed from them is exactly what they gave me as guest stars in my European adventure. And it’s entirely reciprocal, as I’ve been guest starring in their adventures as well. Hopefully it’s been in some sort of memorable way, though I suspect my stories aren’t nearly as exciting.

Dreams of broccoli

So, let's say a person eats upwards of two salami and cheese sandwiches every single day for at least three weeks and hasn't even seen a green vegetable for nearly twice as long. Will this result in a slow, painful, stomach-churning death? Or will the youthful energy of said person compensate for such a horrendous diet? I'm banking on the latter.

No blue light specials in the Red Light District

Everyone is on vacation in this city. It's a constant party all day and all night with naps at odd hours and meals when you should be sleeping. The streets are all full, packed with dreadlocked tourists, mumbling beggars and haggling shopowners. Bikes weave through everyone, never breaking for children or stopping for cars. I rented a bike for a couple hours and it was beautiful. Ignoring my map I rode along the canals, through parks, under tunnels, dodging traffic and street signs everywhere. Hundreds of smells filled my nose: cotton candy, engine exhaust, cigar smoke, salt, grease, and of course, cannabis.

I've made quite a few friends and seen a few sights. We wandered the Red Light District last night and stood in front of the most popular whorehouses, watching eager men come in and out. One guy, young - probably about 23 - stood and stared at a brunette in the window as she mouthed words at him and shifted her hips just so. After a few minutes, he grabbed his buddy and the two raced up the stairs. We watched as the brunette and her blonde friend met the guys at the door, let them inside, and took them into a room in the back. And then we waited. And waited. And waited. Fifteen minutes later the guys staggered out the door, red-faced and gleaming, buttoning their shirts.

"How was it?" I said.

"Fuckin' awesome," he laughed, breathing heavily. "But she kept telling me to hurry up. That kind of killed the mood."

"How much did you pay?" my friend asked.

"Fifty euro."

"Was it worth it?" I said.

"Definitely." He clapped his buddy on the back, they turned and walked away, off to find more.

It's interesting the way they've got the Red Light District set up here. During the day the less attractive women strut their stuff, trying to find a man who wants an afternoon treat. And at night the younger, prettier girls come out, framed by red lights and candles, dancing to American pop music. They smoke cigarettes behind the glass and sit on chairs, trying to look innocent and aloof. Some play out schoolgirl fantasies or threaten passersby with whips and chains. And then there are the ugly girls. The ones who no one looks at and who you pity because she's ugly and there's nothing sadder than a whore who can't get laid.

It's comforting to retreat to the hostel at the end of the night. I'm in a room of eighteen people, but it's fine with me because no one smells and my valuables are locked away in a giant metal trash can next to my bed.

I really like Amsterdam but I wonder if it's like this all year round. That might feel a little too crazy after a while. I'm excited to go to Prague tomorrow night and eat some cheap food and hopefully find an Internet cafe with functioning USB ports. Until then, you'll have to use your imagination and picture me sailing over canals on a bike with no gears and a sunburn on my back.

Amsterdam

Staying in a hostel two blocks from the red light district. Did you guys know that they smoke a lot of pot here? Yeah, I know. It's amazing. I feel like I just walked into my high school bathroom except that everyone is thirty years old and they don't exhale into the sleeve of their jacket. It's crazy. Internet access is incredibly expensive here, so emails will be less frequent. I miss all you guys.

Philipp

I sat on the couch and cried quietly into my knees as he stuffed his jeans into his backpack. He looked up at me and smiled kindly, his eyes twinkling but sad. I wiped tears on my sleeve as he removed his favorite button from his jacket and pinned it on my purse without saying a word.

She’d warned me about this. Lynn, the first person I met when I came to Europe had said, “Don’t fall in love,” as we munched on burgers in the restaurant next to the hostel. I’d laughed and shook my head saying, “Oh don’t worry. I’m not planning on it.”

But I never knew that weekends like this were possible back then. I never knew that you could meet someone who feels like a missing puzzle piece that’s been found after years of looking. Someone who kisses your nose and tells you things he’s never told anyone before and stares at you like you’ve just floated down from the sky.

And they always have to leave. Back to their own lives, back to their jobs and classes and families and friends with your perfect weekend now just a memory, dimming a little with each passing moment.

Philipp.

He makes me laugh. We wrestle on the floor and he never lets me win but every fight ends with kisses and my sides hurt from elbows and laughter. It’s just us this weekend. Felix is here but he gives us space and we fill the days lounging around the flat, wandering through the streets of Hamburg, ignoring the clock, eating salami sandwiches and drinking German juice. At night we flock to the Red Light District and play foosball against random couples in a bar and win every game except one. He stands against the wall nursing his drink as I dance next to our table, singing along to the songs that I know in English. When we leave he holds my hand tightly in his pocket and we weave through hundreds of people packed into tiny streets with peep shows all around and neon lights overhead. We go to a party and I’m cornered by flirtatious German men who want to practice their English, but it’s fun and Philipp give me are-you-okay looks from across the room every couple of hours before finally pulling me away at 4:00 a.m. when the party winds down. In the morning we drink Diet Coke and eat salami sandwiches and he strokes my cheek, not noticing the mascara smeared under my eyes and tangled hair framing my face. Then we watch a movie and go to the flea market just in time to watch them pack everything away and it doesn’t matter because nothing does and we don’t have to do anything other then be with each other and waste time talking about things like wet dog noses and how to correctly pronounce the word “exaggerate.” There are no jobs and no alarm clocks and no responsibilities and no consequences and nothing exists besides us and this town. We act casual and pretend that weekends like this aren’t secretly worth more than entire years of our lives but I can see it when he looks at me as I laugh and when he kisses the top of my head I know exactly what went into it.

I get sad too quickly because I know what’s coming. It’s difficult for me to stay in the moment and not worry about how much I’m going to hurt when it all ends. We only had four days together and by the second day I’m already counting down the hours in my head because I know that there’s no avoiding it and I can’t stop him from leaving.

“I’m not ready,” I whisper as we ride the subway home at 5:00 a.m. on our last night in Hamburg. My head is on his shoulder and I’m sleepy and cold. We’d just spent twenty minutes on a bench in the station waiting for the train to arrive, huddled under a sleeping bag that Philipp had brought to return to his friend. I sipped on a milkshake and laughed at how homeless we undoubtedly looked. He kissed my nose and I shivered, cold from the milkshake and freezing morning air.

I haven’t forgotten about Junior and I still care for him a great deal, but these adventures are like chapters in a book and it’s easy to separate them regardless of how many days apart they actually are. I leave one country and go to the next and set down my bag on a new bed and learn words in a new language and it’s as if my whole life has changed over the course of a five hour train ride. I start over in each place, making a tiny home for a few days, and sometimes I fall in love. It’s happened twice now and this last time was by far the deepest. Maybe it’s because we spent almost an entire week together including the two days in London when we met, and because we speak the same language, so by the end of the last day we felt like we really knew each other.

Philipp.

He’s gone now. Left a little over an hour ago. I asked if I could ride to the train station with him but he said no, that it would be better to say goodbye at the flat. And I was grateful for this decision because once he did leave and kissed my nose one last time and stared at me with his gentle, kind eyes, I shut the door and cried through my hands because once again, forever just started.