Backpacking Across Europe

Forget the floozy-shmoozy lines I scribbled on my Bristol applications.  Spare me the intellectual enrichment and cultural adaptation curves.  And one big nasty Cheerio Sucka! to all personal development poetics.  Really -- down deep where that thrillseeker in me revs his Harley and guns for the next big leap of adventure -- really, I came to England for this:

Bristol, Madrid, Sevilla, Cordoba, Madrid, Barcelona, Lyon, Geneva, Zurich, Munich, Regensberg, Prague, Krakow, Vienna, Venice, Cortona, Rome, Vatican, Turin, Bristol.

Or something like that.  From March 30th - April 18th, or something like that.  After Lyon, France, where Troy and I stayed with my former French Exchange family, the cities blur.  My memory flips from a contrite destination-based sequence pedantically inserting push pins into a mental map of Europe, to a swarm of episodes, unpatternable, frantic, linked together only by the tenuous sinew of the odd overnight train.      

I thought for a long while how to write about backpacking across Europe trip.  I considered top-10 lists or a country-by-country breakdown.  But those means of representation all seemed too academic.  Too orderly.  Too eager to take what was a tangled glorious mess and loosen the knots.  Too quick to find value by shaking the memories until something glittery falls out.  

In the end, I want the travel narrative to mirror the trip with an honesty that's as sharp as a scalpel and as selfish as a Barcelona pickpocket.  Because let's be clear: although categorized under "vacation," backpacking across Europe -- at least in Eric and Troy's city-snapshot style -- is more like climbing a mountain than sunning in the Caribbean.  

Backpacking across Europe demands a different sort of thinking altogether.  A sort of thinking that awards patience and tolerance, but also ruthlessness and decisiveness.  Because there are plenty of unknown characters and situations watching from the fringes.  Some turn out to be delightful and enriching additions.  Others...well, I'll get around to the others.

Barcelona:

I would love to see what Weird Al would come up with if he ever got a hold of these seedy Barcelona street vendors.  He could make a pretty mean song out of their catchphrases. They're everywhere.  First, there's the black Mediterranean Rustafarian-looking guys asking "Smoke weed?"  "Smoke weed?"  "Smoke weed?"

(Once one of our group, instead of just ignoring them, responded with a "No" and the vendor said "Neither do I."  Go figure.) 

Then there's the Indian beer vendors.  They frequent the middle of Barcelona's main boulevard, interrupt sunbathers on the beach, and pop out from dark corners wielding 6-packs of the cheapest passable beer and saying "Cerveza, Beer?"  "Cerveza, Beer?" "Cerveza, Beer?"

We were curious why exactly anyone would buy a can from them, so we stopped and asked. Apparently, their economic plan was to stockpile cheap beer for when the supermarkets closed and the much more expensive bars opened.  At that point, beer got expensive, so their "Cerveza, Beer?" "Cerveza, Beer?" was the only thing able to quench the late-night cheap beer thirst.  

And quench it did.

Troy and I met up with an Indiana University guy studying in Milan and traveling by himself across Europe.  During the day, we didn't travel with him much because he was testing out the nude beach (and shouting "No, don't you understand NO!" to an old Asian woman wanting to give him a massage -- only 5 euros for the back)  while we were exploring the city.  But at night, we met up with him to go out for Subway.  Afterwards, we walked down the main strip, peppered with requests for "Cerveza, Beer?" "Cerveza, Beer?"  

Well, he bought a beer from one of these vendors.  Good travel buddies never let another drink alone, so I bought one, too.  As I sipped mine, this guy, with a vow to show Barcelona how "we do it in America," borrowed a key from Troy and shotgunned the beer in the middle of the main strip.

(Shotgunning a beer involves puncturing the base of the beer, putting the hole to your mouth, then popping the tab so the beer gushes out of the hole.  Apparently, the beer he got was a bit shaken.  When he punctured it, a stream of beer jetted out, splashing the guy who sold him it.  As far as I know, Troy's room key is still sticky.) 

So that's "Smoke some weed" and "Beer, Cerveza."  The two most common sounds of the night

 

There be rarer and more frightening species in the woodwork, too.  Once I accidentally made eye-contact with a middle-aged man riding a bicycle.  His head snapped to mine like something out of the Exorcist as he said: "Want some crack?" After that, I learned to admire the scenery rather than the people.

Thievery, drugs, and cerveza.  

Ahhh...Barcelona.