August 2, 2008

To our amazement, our bags had made it across the Atlantic with us. Everything was there. The fact that we heard no English being spoken anywhere in the airport was immediately unsettling, though most people whom we had bothered with questions had spoken very good English without objection. We had made firm plans to call her cousin from the airport upon our arrival. We did this from a pay phone, and weren’t at all surprised when she failed to answer. My wife left her a cheerful message announcing our arrival. We knew that we needed to get to Düsseldorf Hbf (the main train station in Düsseldorf), where we were supposed to meet her cousin. From there, she was supposed to guide us back to her apartment. We found our way through the airport to the subway platform and boarded the correct train, planning on trying to phone her again from the train station. We made certain that we bought subway passes for our ten-minute subway ride to Düsseldorf Hbf. We were a little confused to find nobody there to take or check our tickets, but we paid no mind.

Once at Düsseldorf Hbf, we were utterly terrified and confused. There were lots of trains (both subway trains and large high-speed ICE trains), leaving from a variety of platforms, headed for lots of different places. There were screens with up-to-the-minute train schedules on them, with not a word of English anywhere. My wife was rested from her sleep, but I hadn’t slept a wink and was groggy and irritable. We bought a very cheap cell phone and loaded it up with a few prepaid minutes. Before leaving on the trip, my wife had confirmed with our phone company back home that our phones wouldn’t work in Europe. We tried her cousin again on our new cell phone, without luck, and walked out of the train station, where we saw a field of trams with different numbers running up and down different streets. My wife recognized the number on one of them as being the number that her cousin had mentioned that we’d need to take. The tram traveled in two directions. Her cousin had mentioned something about one direction going to a University, and said that we’d need to go the other direction. We did this. Once on the tram, we were again baffled to find nobody to pay and nobody to check our tickets. This tram was supposed to drop us off right in front of her apartment, a few short blocks away. All we knew was that her apartment was above a pharmacy. So we each kept our eyes peeled. When we saw a pharmacy that resembled her cousin’s description, we got out and called again from our new phone, with a reasonable degree of anxiety. Success! Her cousin answered. She had just awakened. We informed her that we weren’t at the airport or train station any longer and were in fact standing in front of her apartment. Within a few short moments she came down to greet us and guide us up to her place to unload all of our bags, which I had been carrying.

Düsseldorf in August has almost exactly the same weather as Pittsburgh in August, just about 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Coincidentally, it’s a very similar city. It’s certainly a real city, though not a very major one. I believe it also used to be similarly industrial. So in a strange way, my wife and I had just flown 12 hours from Pittsburgh to Pittsburgh. I felt pretty gross, as I had sweated completely through my clothes from carrying the luggage in the heat, and it was a new day despite the fact that I hadn’t slept. I was still wearing the same things that I had worn the previous day. So I showered and changed into a fresh t-shirt and shorts. While my wife freshened up and hatched plans with her cousin, I napped. It lasted about half an hour.

We left the apartment to go eat lunch and catch a train headed for Fulda. It’s a small and somewhat remote town in Germany, about two hours away from Düsseldorf by ICE train. There we would see the band In Extremo performing in the courtyard of a 200 year old castle. They’re one of my wife’s favorite bands, and they never play in the States. So our time in Germany would be the perfect opportunity to see them live. She had planned it months in advance of the trip. Before boarding the train to Fulda, we got lunch at a nice restaurant with café-style outdoor seating. It was very nice, and her cousin brought us up to speed on a few important things. Nobody uses credit cards anywhere in Germany for anything. They operate almost strictly on cash unless you’re buying a car or a house. The subways in Germany aren’t free, but they operate on the honor system. Since we’re Americans and thus lack honor or morals, they were effectively free for us. We laughed riotously at the notion of such a system being implemented in New York City. My wife's cousin said that in the year that she’d been living in Düsseldorf, she had only ever seen people checking tickets on three occasions. She said that the ticket checkers are very conspicuous, and there are automated machines on all of the trains. So when you see the ticket checkers approach, you can just rush over and buy a ticket. On all three occasions she was able to do this and avoid being fined. We made note. Lunch was excellent. We all had beers, which were oddly very small. They were also very cheap, cheaper than water actually. Refills came very quickly. Lunch itself was pretty great. My wife ordered the blood sausage, because she’s occasionally given to fits of insanity. Oddly it was very good, though very bloody, as you could imagine. I tried a little, and she ate most of it. The potatoes were awesome. We were paid cash and left for the Düsseldorf Hbf via the subway. There we would catch a train to Fulda.

We had six days’ worth of “all you can ride” first-classs ICE train passes. They were very big, expensive, complex train tickets that required you to show your passport each time you used them. Unlike the subway trains, the ICE trains had abundant attendants. They did not operate on the honor system. However, the attendants didn’t check your tickets until you were already on the train, and it was moving. Apparently, if you get caught riding without a pass you would be given a hefty fine. We had no desire to find out. We rode in a dining car for most of the two hour train ride to Fulda. We all had beers on the train. Once we arrived in Fulda we explored a little bit, though there wasn’t much to see. We killed some time exploring, and it was time to eat again. So we did. I had pizza and more beer. The beer in Germany is all of excellent quality, though Germans are incredibly narrow in the variety of beers they have. Essentially they like pilsners, hefeweisen (wheat beer), and something called ‘alt-bier.’ I still don’t know exactly what alt-bier is, but it tastes like a pilsner, only slightly maltier. Germans basically like their beer light and fizzy. They don’t enjoy or tolerate any sort of stout, porter, ale, or barley wine.

Dinner was good, and the show was good. We’ve seen tons of shows in our time, and they’re not really any different in Germany than they are back home. The evening was essentially uneventful except for the crushing fatigue that began to seize upon me. I nearly fell asleep standing upright a few times. Once the show ended we raced back to the train station to catch the very last train out of Fulda that day. We caught it by mere seconds. The ticket checker took a look at our ticket and stamped it. No problem.

At about 1am we arrived back at the apartment, and I slept like I was dead.

August 1, 2008

I woke up 30 years old at 7am and hurriedly jumped into the shower. Our flight was leaving the airport at 12:40, and we’d been told to be there at least two hours early to account for the all the security and lines. We only live about ten minutes away from Pittsburgh International Airport. However, my wife requires no less than two hours to go from ‘fresh out of bed’ to ‘ready-to-go.’ There’s lots of personal maintenance involved, and though I ridicule her for it relentlessly, it never seems to make a sufficient impression upon her to cause her to reduce the duration of her morning ritual. So we just plan for it in our timing. At about 9:40, my mom arrived at our house to drive us to the airport. She dropped us off. We checked our bags and got our boarding passes and got through security, all in less than half an hour. We had time to kill. We walked around a bunch, and ended up at the bar at TGI Fridays at around 11am. We had beers, toasted my birthday, and talked about all the awesome shit we were about to do to Europe. We boarded the plane and flew to Atlanta without incident, at which point we boarded our connecting flight to Düsseldorf.

The flight from Atalanta to Düsseldorf was long and cramped. In front of me sat the only motherfucker on the whole plane who felt like he needed to recline back as far as his seat would allow. He was German. I was already pissed off with the locals and I wasn’t even there yet. I’m 6’ 2” and thus I scarcely fit in most plane seats anyway. My knees were thoroughly crushed when this inconsiderate jackass reclined completely. My wife had secured a prescription from her doctor for some sort of sedative to knock her out for the flight. She took one, and it worked. She clocked out almost immediately. I got out Crime and Punishment, put on my headphones, and started reading. The flight went without any real incident, and we arrived in Düsseldorf at 7:20am local time. The total time spent from our departure in Pittsburgh to our arrival in Düsseldorf was about 12 hours, and we lost 6 hours to time zones. 18 hours total.

July 31, 2008

July 31st was another terrible day at work. When it ended, I was mentally and emotionally exhausted. I hit the gym as I always do on Thursdays, and once I returned home and showered, I began packing.

Germany

We had wanted to see Europe for quite a while. All the way back when we were in college, we’d determined that it would be something that we would love to do. We’re both people with a strong desire to explore and see new things. The expense of such a trip was totally prohibitive for quite a while. The language barrier is also an intimidating point unless you confine yourself to English-speaking countries, which we wouldn’t want to do. Neither one of us speaks anything other than English with any proficiency. As years rolled by and we achieved financial stability, we began to run out of excuses for our complacency. Last year we determined that we could easily afford to make the trip. When we learned that my wife’s cousin had just moved from Seattle to Düsseldorf, Germany, it seemed obvious that we should finally go. We planned the trip for the next year.

This trip had been a carrot dangling on the end of a rope at the end of a very long stick for a very long time. So long, in fact, that as the carrot actually got closer and very much within reach, it was hard to comprehend that it had moved out of the world of pure abstraction into the world of imminent reality. It was only during the week preceding our departure that I began to really comprehend it. Appropriately, we would be leaving on my birthday, August 1, when I would turn 30. Unfortunately, the volume of work and stress at my job had been huge, fevered, and shitty for the entire month of July. So my mental state was not the best, and I was not really afforded the luxury of excited anticipation. I did, however, make it through the end of the day on Thursday, July 31 without losing my temper and quitting my job. My wife and I were all packed and ready to leave by the next morning. The following is a document of our trip.

Baltimore

My wife applied to Artscape 2008 in Baltimore. It’s the largest such art festival in the country. Not only was she accepted, she was asked to participate in all three days. She agreed. We had high hopes for moneymaking. In two days at the Handmade Arcade in Pittsburgh, she had made about $1,500. We thought $3,000 wasn’t an unreasonable goal this time around, given the extra day and my wife’s extra preparation.

The drive was uneventful except for the long sprawling tour of Baltimore’s ghettos, which our new GPS took us through. We had left immediately upon my return from work Thursday evening. So we drove into the night. There were packs of shirtless young men on bikes in front of liquor stores.

The first day went very slowly. It was 95 degrees Fahrenheit, and there weren’t many sales. At the day’s end we were dejected, lamenting the two full days remaining.

The second day was much better. My wife’s merchandise was selling very briskly. It was even hotter than the preceding day, 97 degrees Fahrenheit. At some point in the middle of the afternoon I made a trip to the booth selling non-alcoholic tropical drinks in giant, tacky, carved out coconuts. The coconuts were carved to look like pirate monkey heads, and the beverage sat in a plastic cup inside. What does a pirate monkey head look like, you ask? A pirate monkey head looks like a regular monkey head, except it’s gritting its teeth and it has an eye patch. They cost $10 and came with a ticket for one free refill. I got in line behind a young man who looked to be in his early 20s. He was very skinny, wearing a very long beard, Sikh head wrap, a button-down shirt that was unbuttoned down to his navel, and full-length jeans. Upon sight of him I knew with certainty that he would want to talk to me, as these kind of confused college student hippies always want to talk to me about some sort of insanity. I braced myself and got into line behind him, as I really wanted to drink frozen Tang out of a coconut carved to look like a pirate monkey head. Within seconds, he spun around and began talking in rhyme. It was a long-winding string of ersatz poetry that included some points like, “It’s a hot and beautiful day…and maybe some people come out to play.” There was much more, but it escapes me. Eventually it led to a dancing lesson. Off in the distance somewhere, there was somebody playing a bongo, and that was all he needed. He showed me some basic steps and spins in Flamenco dancing. My own sense of politeness and amusement often prevents me from objecting in these sorts of situations, and thus I end up half-heartedly Flamenco dancing with hippies in 97 degree heat while in line for a frozen drink in a carved coconut in the middle of a giant craft fair in Baltimore. When it was his turn to order, he had completely forgotten about getting his drink. I was quick to point out that the girl at the counter had just called him up. She looked terrified. I was relieved that he was no longer my problem.

Later that afternoon it was so hot that I really didn’t have much of an appetite, and I just wanted to drink. After the free refill for the monkey head had been redeemed, I switched to beer. The other vendors sharing our tent were locals, and they told us about a great brew pub called The Brewer’s Art just up the street. So I made a trip and brought back a couple of large bottles. Excellent. The kind people in our tent also had a large cooler full of beer, albeit of much lower quality. Regardless, my drinking started, and I sustained it at a good pace. Recycling is important. In these times when we need to be so concerned about global warming, recycling is an effortless thing that everybody can do to help. A booth promoting recycling was situated just a few tents down from where we sat. As you would expect, they had a giant garbage can for recyclables. It was convenient. As I finished bottles, I took them down and threw them in the appropriate can. As other people in our tent finished bottles I took them down, because I’m a nice and helpful guy. At the recycling booth there was a giant pack of Mormons, no fewer than a dozen, standing behind the garbage cans. They were all males who looked to be in their late teens and early twenties, who were likely doing their required mission work. They were there, unmoving, all day, from about noon until 10pm. Their job was to cheer loudly and jubilantly every time somebody recycled something. Anything. During the first part of the morning I had thrown away a few empty water bottles and they had cheered. Once afternoon rolled around and I began making more and more frequent trips with beer bottles, they didn’t waver. They continued to cheer for me faithfully each time I recycled another bottle. Some of them even seemed amused. As afternoon wore into evening it became a contest of endurance. I punished them with my empties and they retaliated with appalled cheers. Granted, it wasn’t an entirely fair contest, as a reasonable portion of the beer bottles that I was throwing away weren’t truly mine, but I wasn’t going to tell them that.

During that evening, between visits to the Mormons and reading sessions (I was reading Crime and Punishment at the time), I worked the booth, providing break time for my wife. She would use these breaks to go walking around, enjoying the festival, eating tofu, and talking with other vendors. She’s very well-adjusted that way. I was reasonably buzzed, but still entirely functional. Most of the people buying things didn’t make much of an impression on me. Everybody was generally nice and not insane. At one point, however, a somewhat intense-looking biker woman came up and bought some various small things. It’s important to note here that the city of Baltimore means fucking business with its sales tax policies. Prior to this whole event, my wife had been required to get a license from the city of Baltimore to be a vendor, and keep records of all of her sales. They were also adamant that she charge appropriate sales tax on top of her prices, and not simply take them out of her prices. For example, she couldn’t simply charge $4 for a patch and then out of that $4 pay the appropriate portion in taxes, effectively reducing the price to $3 and some change. She would rather have eaten a couple cents’ loss on each sale than have to perform extra math on each sale, but that wasn’t an option. They said they’d have people hidden in the crowd, spot-checking for compliance. Regardless, this biker woman bought a myriad of things which totaled some ungodly number like $7.32 or something similarly horrific. She was relatively short, looked to be in her mid 40s, was kind of chubby and wearing lots of Harley Davidson gear. She had a very bright and warm personality. Initially she just handed me a $10 bill, but upon seeing me struggle to figure out the change without the aid of a calculator, decided that she would just take $3 and pay the change in coin. I welcomed this. She grabbed a handful of coins out of her pocket, and leaned forward with it. While she was picking through the coins, looking for exact change, I noticed a very large and unusual-looking coin which was clearly not US currency. I was immediately intrigued and asked what it was. My assumption was that it was some sort of exotic foreign currency. She explained that it was her Sobriety Coin. She proceeded to read it to me: “TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE. UNITY. RECOVERY. SERVICE.” I was confused, and must have looked visibly so. I thought that it might be some sort of biker mantra, and perhaps she was about to kick my ass. I said, “Oh, I’ve never seen one of those before.” To which she replied, “You wouldn’t, unless you’ve ever been in alcoholics anonymous.”

The third day was uneventful. At the end of it, we drove home.