Stray o'mailley - 30/7/02 - do it in bits, don't punish yourself

Brace yesself Shirl.

On my last night in Prague I went to the women's
avant-garde festival, which was dead right on the
first two counts, but I'm not sure how festive it
was. Entirely too much wailing and gnashing of
teeth. Kind of like Yoko Ono on, well, whatever
Yoko was on.
The last act was excellent, but I had to flee
pretty early into the woman screaming THERE IS NO
HOPE BABY with the Japanese snuff film playing
behind. Not early enough.

My man Lela, who did fire busking on Prague's main
bridge, had told me that Switzerland is the best
place on earth to perform. They go mad for it he
said, you can make 50 euro in an hour he said. It
was halfway to my next stop in Italy, so I used it
to at least break up the trip.
I must have walked at least sixty kilometers on the
first day in Zurich, barefoot with two glass cuts
and a cigarette burn on my right foot, with three
hours of non sleep on the floor of a bus. The ever
so symbolic incessant infliction of wounds to my
left big toe in Malaysia seems to have moved, I can
only wonder at the implications.
All this was trying to line up the last step in the
completion of my collapsible fire staff,
specifically a rivet gun. Which I didn't find but
managed to get sorted the next day, along with
finding out what kerosene is called there. You
don't want to use the wrong stuff and immolate
yourself like a protesting Vietnamese Buddhist.
Good crowd appeal, but short lived and no encores.
But I've figured the foot thing out. At the time I
was still very much in the big-eyed wonderment
phase of traveling, not looking where my feet were
going. I've since come to the conclusion that once
you've seen one city in a country you've seen them
all. At least on a superficial level.
If I ever run into Lela again I'm going to ask him
what the hell he was talking about. Maybe he said
Sweden, I always get those sw countries mixed up. I
didn't make 50 euro in an hour, I made twenty five
cents.
I've never seen people react that way to fire
before. Usually if nothing else they'll show a few
seconds of interest, in Prague I was getting
applause and whistles. People in Zurich wouldn't
even look at me. I even broke the law and performed
on the main street for bars and clubs, and actually
got glares.
But I've figured it out; they equate busking with
begging. I got the same blind eyes they'd turn on
me sitting in a gutter with my hand out. Or
hitching in Blenheim.
There was a small grove of trees with groups of
youth sprawled on the grass nearby. I gave up and
wandered there to finish off my kero. Free show for
the kiddies, why not. It looked really good to,
I've put double wicks on the staff so the flames
are huge and they lit up the trees around me with
flickering yellow light. Nobody looked, nobody
cared.
All of you I'm sure have been to cities where the
fact that the person next you will not gain
financially from your presence means that he does
not care if you live or die. Zurich is that times
three. If you aren't a unit of currency, alcoholic
in content or have a designer tag then you have no
value.
And expensive? Is it what. My first night there I
ended up paying ten Swiss francs ($13.50nz) for a
MacDonald's crappy meal since that was the cheapest
option with all the supermarkets closing at 8pm. I
eventually lined up free internet, but previously
had been quoted as high as 15 francs an hour.
$20nz.
Suffice it to say Zurich was soon behind me and I
haven't looked back. Switzerland is beautiful
though, I'm looking forward to returning and
getting into the mountains and some of the smaller
towns.
After that trauma I think maybe Milan wasn't the
best choice of follow up. It's basically the same
and ten times the size. The buildings are
incredible, it's like being in ancient Rome, but
there's the same general disdain. Especially toward
the barefooted, I'm used to stares but sneers of
disgust are going a bit far.
In Italy you can't get a busker's license without a
work permit. So that wasn't going to happen.
I can't decide whether Milan or Florence has the
worst backpackers I've ever stayed in. They present
very different cases for the title.
There is only one in Milan, and it gave me the
mistaken impression that fascism is still the norm
in Italy. You aren't allowed to stay more than
three nights, so I've you plan to stay in the city
for longer than that, tough. Suffer. Milan has no
need for those who can't afford hotels. Non YHA
members can't stay at all. Each morning at seven
they start ringing the fire alarm every twenty
minutes so that you can't sleep in and miss getting
locked out of the building between nine and three.
There are no cooking facilities, not such a problem
since you can't eat anywhere in the building,
midnight curfew up to which you can't sleep anyway
with the constant loudspeakering for someone to
come to reception. The washing machines cost eleven
NZ$. The rooms don't lock.
But here's how you scam them: pay for the first
night. Next morning check out, but put your own
lock on the locker you have to keep you gear in.
They are supposed to go by bed number but half are
broken so it's all shuffled around. In the
afternoon just walk in like you own the place.
There'll be a different person on reception so they
won't know you haven't paid. Find a bed.
I got caught out by a transportation workers strike
and had to stay in Milan for three days, so I
wandered round a lot. There is a huge castle in the
middle of the city that has been converted into a
museum. I kept trying to get where I should not be
but it was all locked down and guarded pretty good.
I had one brief window when two guards wandered
off, but wasn't quite fast enough. I wanted to go
back the next day while I was waiting for my bus
and film a tour with my head-cam, but the bloody
thing's broken again.

Florence is without a doubt the most amazing
looking city I've seen. It's Prague squared.
Architecture? Has it what.
The first hostel was full and as I was leaving to
chase up another one I was called across the street
to a small accommodation office. The young girl
working there told me about one place that would
have room, sounding so much like a hard sell that I
figured she must be the owners daughter. Which she
was. But I ended up there anyway because everywhere
else was full.
I think the scam goes something like this, it's
pieced together from my experiences and others I
talked to: the accommodation office is owned by
this hostel, they tell you to go to address A,
which is fairly nice and I think is just the
apartment of the owners. Once there you are usually
asked to wait for up to two hours while your room
is being allegedly prepared, but eventually you'll
get told you can't stay in this building and are
taken a short distance to address B. Three rooms,
hot as Hades, broken toilet, full of mosquitoes and
covered in graffiti. Twenty euro a night, worst
night's sleep I've had since that bus from Czech.
You're encouraged to write on the walls, so I
scrawled on the front door:

You won't sleep
You won't use the toilet
You will never come back
You've been warned,
Though perhaps too late
To run like hell

next to where someone else had put 'you've just
been scammed.'

Bus from Florence to Montecartini to Pescia, which
even Italians have never heard of, and is where
some guy who picked me up hitching in New Zealand
two years ago and made the throw away comment of
'if you're ever in Italy.', lives.
Picture me sprawled in a hammock overlooking an
olive farm and no less than four perfectly
picturesque little villages nestled into the hills
of the valley below and filled to perforation with
the best Italian food ever, and imagine how happy
I'd be. Mmmmmm.
Every hour the church bells in all the villages
toll it out, but I was slightly put off to learn
they're now computer controlled.
I even forced myself to watch the two soccor world
cup quarter finals, Germany vs. South Korea and
Turkey vs. Brazil. I even made it to half time
before wandering off and doing something else. I
tried to get interested, I really did, but try as I
might it's still just some guys having a
kick-around in some bloke's paddock.
Christian had just sold his farm to an English
couple and was staying with his mother on her farm
nearby. The couple had been living in the North of
England, fairly well off with a young son and
working hard. One minute they're thinking at depth
about what their next four wheel drive should be,
so as to best impress their neighbors, and the next
thing they know they're on all fours in their
underpants weeding a vege patch in Tuscany.
It was inspirational actually. Something up and
smacked them, made them realise that their lives
were spent in the pursuit of bollocks and that it
does no good for a child to be raised in a city as
a liability to parents who resent having to plan
their working lives around him.
They're going to be on the English TV show 'no
going back', about poms who just up and leave. Does
my feral heart good.


CHAPTER TWO.
Being entitled: "Language."
Or:
"Trying to simultaneously learn German and Italian
from a stoned guy with little English is tricky
when you're drunk."


Ask a foreign question; get a foreign answer.
My first attempt at constructing a sentence in
Malaysian (a complete failure, 'pulau te ke?' does
not mean 'to the island?', 'ke' isn't even a word)
was punished with a stream of directions,
obviously, in Malaysian. Quite often I've had to
interrupt people after a few minutes with 'I'm
sorry but I don't actually speak foreign, I know I
asked you in foreign, I was just trying to be cool.
I have no idea what the hell you're going on
about.'
Usually though, even if my question was perfectly
constructed, my accent is so thick that they assume
I can't be local and I get an English answer
anyway. Best of both worlds really. I still can't
really hear the New Zealand accent in Kiwis I've
met, but damn it sounds thick when people parrot
something back to me, not having understood.
'Chroyne sdoyshin?' 'No, train station.' 'Neowe
chroyne sdoyshin?' Sigh.
I hate though, and it happens a bit, when people
freak out. I had one guy as soon as I spoke to him
refuse to make eye contact and walk off a short
distance, staring at the ground. After I left he
walked back to where he'd been. Freak.

The 'stoned guy' mentioned in the chapter title was
a resident of Merano, who saved me from walking up
the rest of that damn mountain with all my gear by
driving me to the free music festival I went to
after Tuscany. South Tirol, the area, used to be
part of Austria until Hitler didn't want it any
more and Mussolini did. It's good because they
speak Italian and German, letting me switch from to
the other mid sentence.
I'd caught trains all the way up Italy, but missed
the last one, leaving me stranded in Bolzano in the
middle of the most impressive thunderstorm I've
seen. It wouldn't've made a difference if I'd
caught the train, since there are no hostels in
Merano either, especially at midnight. I jumped a
fence and tented in the tree line next to the
railway station.
The festival was for the next two days on the side
of the aforementioned mountain; pretty small and I
liked it. It was there that I noticed a mole has
appeared on my right hip in the _exact_ shape of an
om. You know, that Tibetan thing that looks like a
3 but with extra squiggles. I freaks me out. All my
other moles look like, well, circles, not the most
fundamental symbol in eastern spirituality.

I prefer to think; there is no spoon.

Io piaci dice grazia grazia grazia per il Bolzano
persona, regazzo e seniorina per fare su alle an
dice 'casa mia e casa su.' Benne tempi. Io dante
piaci il bella lingo Italiano, Io studio doupo, nel
una anno.

Every Italian word I know, spelt wrong, in the
wrong order and no doubt completely
incomprehensible to everyone. What it's supposed to
mean is big ups to the Bolzano massive. Nicole,
Manny and Manny who I met on the mountain and I
hope have slept since. Nina, Martina and Martine
for putting me up and feeding me well for more than
a week. Eva, the lovely Eva Maria.

I thought I was doing pretty well with Italian
until I ran into some Napoli boys recently who
(would have had many of the women I know drooling)
gave me a very brief intro into conjugating verbs
and completely destroyed my illusions of having a
decent conversation in Italian any time soon. The
words are relatively easy for an English speaker,
being Latin spin-offs too, but the grammar is a
goddamn nightmare. Beautiful language.
I know that the 'nero' in Opal Nero means black. I
feel so worldly.

German. Hmmmm. On the way to Czech we passed though
the south Saxony town of Dresden, and I took an
immediate shine to the place. Youthy.
I've managed to make $1800nz last over three
months, which is pretty good, but my finances are
nonetheless starting to wind down. I've been trying
to make the fire busking thing pay to no avail, it
seems entirely dependant on the town and west
Europe just isn't the place. When the weather cools
I'll make my way to the Mediterranean, where by all
accounts I should do well.
Time for a flat and a job and I figured Dresden was
the place. Unfortunately though my laptop was still
in Holland. Look at a map of Europe and you'll
appreciate how much of a detour it is to go from
northeastern Italy to southeastern Germany, via
freaking west Holland. I did get to see the ocean
again tho, the first time in almost three months.
I got back to the wwoofing farm in two days, the
middle leg being a hitch from Munich to Den Haag,
arranged through the German hitching service with a
couple who thought it would be a really good idea
to leave on the twelve hour drive at six pm. To
avoid traffic. It got me there fast but I was the
walking dead shambling into the farm, and no one
was having it. Bad moods all round, most of which
Dave the 'fuck this traffic jam, I'm not sitting
here for hours like these bastards, we're driving
up the cycle lane (and we did)' Englishman who
ignored me the whole time. I don't give an arse
about what happened, I was surprised to find him
carrying a grudge. I found out he also got bored of
and abandoned two other friends of mine, which
makes me feel a bit better about the whole thing.

I'm going to write an angry email. To Dutch rail.
I bought a ticket from Arnhem to 'the closest big
German city'. Both my bank cards have stopped
working, the credit card has the wrong pin and the
atm has expired. I couldn't bear to stay at the
farm so had to leave with ten euro in my wallet. I
assumed that I could buy a train ticket with my
credit card to Germany, where I knew the banks
would let me get money over the counter. That thing
they say about assumptions must be translated from
Dutch. Everything in Holland is meticulously
controlled, but nothing works. I was going to need
cash. It was Sunday so all the banks were closed,
not that they could help me anyway, same with the
post office. None of the stores would let me
withdraw or buy something and cash it in.
Aaahh Holland, where flat describes everything. It
is said that an Englishman even when alone will
form an orderly queue of one. A Dutchman will still
manage to be at least half a dozen deep. When I
first arrived in Europe my luck immediately turned
sour. I don't really think that much about real
world issues. Most of the time I'm off in my whole
little world with my only connection to the outside
being a general feeling of trust that everything
will sort itself out immediately before me and
reorder smoothly behind me. Suffice it to say
without huge amounts of luck things can go very
wrong very fast, and it seemed mine was on the way
out.
It wasn't Europe though, just Holland. As soon as I
get within two hundred kays of the place my timing
starts missing, my intuition flails and the regular
cosmic handouts (I'm an esoteric beneficiary) that
so often save my ass, don't. The effect lasts for
several days after leaving the country. Even
flying over Belgium is enough to throw everything
into chaos, as I later discovered.
It took me a lot of somewhat anxious thought to
figure out I could buy something for somebody with
my card and they could give me the cash, which is
what I did. A thirty five euro bike helmet for a
Dutchman who needed a lot of explaining.
It's a good way to get money, but it made me one of
those guys, who do things like that. Guys you know
have got to be pulling a scam, you're just not sure
if you are the one being scammed. Especially when
the card was _so_ obviously stolen. It's really
mine, but I haven't used it before so the clerk had
to show me how to swipe it through the machine and
which buttons to push. My signature changes daily
and when he wanted to compare the signatures I held
the card up upside down.
It was when I crossed into Germany that the train
ticket started giving me problems. I had clawed
myself free but Holland got in one final parting
shot. The itinerary they'd given me put me on one
of the ultra modern fast trains, and the stewardess
didn't want me there. It was her fault tho, she
thought we'd already passed where I was supposed to
get off.
Oberhaussen is further into Germany than Emmerich,
in fact you go through it to get there, and is much
bigger. My ticket was to Emmerich, via Oberhaussen.
Huh? I hear you ask. The fast train didn't stop in
Emmerich, so I had to get another train back the
way I'd come. Obvioulsy if I'd known this I
would've just stayed put. The fun really started
when I was halfway back. Apparently my ticket was
only valid for trains direct to Emmerich, and not
for the train I was currently on. I shouldn't have
let myself get kicked off that train. It was that
or pay another four euro, which I couldn't because
of my cash situation, but I should have just
grabbed hold of my armrest and wailed like the rain
man if anyone came near me.
I still don't know what varderfuukburg I was dumped
in but there was nowhere to stay other than
(luckily) the only two square meters of West
Germany without a house on it. But I had to clear
that myself with my trusty leatherman .
Is there a sign on my back saying 'purge me?' 'Hurl
me screaming and flailing into the night?' Could
someone please take it off?
The next morning I got back on that train with the
absolute determination that they were going to call
the police if they wanted me off, but no ticket
inspector showed so it wasn't important.
It was strange, usually I'm in that situation
because I'm mid scam, but this time for the first
time I was completely in the right. I'll write an
angry letter, milk it. Maybe I'll get some free
stuff.
Bloody Daniel.

I've only met two kiwis so far, and they've both
been at the hostel in Dresden. Mostly it's been
Americans, in fact I've met heaps of them,
especially in Prague. I have this urge to ask 'so,
been to any fundamentalist countries run by
religiously intolerant non democratically elected
leaders responsible for mass acts of global
terrorism and the production and development of
weapons of mass destruction recently?' But I don't.
One shouldn't mistake a country's inhabitants for
the country itself. Plus travelers never represent
the ideals of those don't leave.
I was going to go rock climbing with a Canadian and
a Texan whom I also met in Dresden. The Texan had
gear. I don't want to make out like they were anal
retentive, they really weren't, but they did have a
tendency to plan and schedule. Despite this, or
because of it, I couldn't help but notice how
everything we ended up doing went completely,
spastically wrong.
We arrived where there was supposed to be good
climbing, to find only rain and slippery rock, so
headed straight back on the train. The next stop
after Dresden's main station was supposed to be the
station near our hostel, but whereas that's in the
center of town, the terrain outside was starting to
look suspiciously rural. I asked the guy sitting
behind us what the next stop was. Berlin airport.
Two hours north. We were on the wrong train. 'Are
there any stops between here and Berlin?' We asked
the conductor. 'No'. 'Can you stop the train?'
'Haha. No.' Thank god the ticket inspector for some
reason walked right past us, otherwise we would
have had a thirty euro ticket there on top of the
thirty euro ticket back.
We were resigning ourselves to the crappy logistics
of spending the next four and a half hours on an
unwanted train trip and not getting back until
after midnight when we started to slow down. We
grabbed our stuff, ran to the door, flung it open
and as we came to a momentary halt, leapt out.
Further down the train an old woman had also
climbed out, we figured they must have stopped to
let her off. We were too busy jumping up and down
yelling 'we're not going to Berlin!' to really
care. As that train pulled out of the middle of
nowhere train stop we found ourselves in, the one
back into town, probably the last one for at least
an hour, pulled in. We were too far from the
crosswalk to make it, so we dashed out across the
tracks, cut behind the train as it came to a stop
and pulled ourselves into the rear doors.
Our trip to the same place the next day saw us
walking back the wrong way and getting stuck in the
rain, sheltering in a service station until a
customer thankfully gave us all a lift the six kays
back to where we were supposed to be. We thought we
heard the train pull in so had to sprint across the
village to the station, jumping fences and through
back gardens.
There is no work in Dresden. That's what people
tell me, I haven't got the work ethic to go out and
find out for myself. Besides, I don't speak German,
my English is dodgy at best, I don't have a work
permit, I've never worked in a café before, I've
never worked before, I have a problem with
authority, I hate coffee, I don't get up in the
morning and I'd quit if I didn't get at least a
weeks holiday every month. In short there is no
reason why anyone would ever hire me.
But I am foreign, exotic, a six foot porcelain
dread boy with hemp jeans and pig tails. That's
gotta count for something, doesn't it?
Not enough to base my livelihood on.
O well, the idea of leaving Dresden didn't bother
me too much so I can't've been that attached to the
place. Someone said Dublin; so next stop Ireland.

I had one hundred percent pure Dutch luck the day I
tried to leave Dresden. It wasn't even the day I'd
wanted to go, but when you get hostel rooms one day
at a time you run the risk of losing your bed.
Which I did. In fact I lost every bed in town, all
full. The hitchhiking office, mitfahrzentrale, must
have closed the second I arrived, by the time I got
to the train station there were no more trains to
Frankfurt where I was to catch my flight to London.
On the way I was ticket inspected on the tram,
dragged off but let off. I think Dresden has a tag
and release policy for undersize violators, scare
them with a thirty Euro fine and nicely let them
go. Thank god. This tram thing is closing out.


I think I've already mentioned the complete lack of
public toilets in Europe. Usually the only place I
can find them is in train stations, and they can
cost up to two dollars twenty nz. The trains
themselves, on the other hand, are completely free.
Now pay attention, because this is important: if
you're going to jump a train just to use the
toilet, make sure it's one sitting in the station
with the departure time clearly displayed, not one
that's just pulled in. Because it will pull out
again in a few minutes, and that's not a race
against time you want to lose. I haven't come afoul
of it yet, but 'I was just here using the loo and
the bloody thing took off on me,' is not something
I want to have to translate into German.

There is such a thing here as a EuroRail Pass. And
I'm going to get me one. Those who know me well
will know how. It lets you take any train anywhere
in the EU without paying. My two main costs are
transportation and accommodation, and I think this
pass would solve both. The first one obviously, but
for the latter I'm thinking I could rather than
stay in a backpackers just jump an overnight train
to somewhere very far away, timing it so I wake up
as we're pulling in.
I've been running a slight variation of this with
the German Weekend Ticket, which lets five people
travel anywhere in Deutschland for either Saturday
or Sunday, for twenty-eight euro. Bloody good deal.
I get as far as I can on one of these, then jump on
a random early morning train out of whatever city
I'm in and find somewhere to pitch my tent. I had
to do this twice getting to Frankfurt, I don't know
how people manage to travel without tents, let
alone sleeping bags.

Trees smeared with speed
Waft like the rain, backwards
Across the train's window;
Perhaps thinking that is a better direction.
I disagree, things only make sense
When you see that life is straightforward.

It seems strange that I would have to learn the
hard way not to get drunk and play with fire. There
was an Irish guy in the dorm at Frankfurt

Me - '.but I'm not really Irish.'
Him - 'Never say that out load again.'
I'm going to like Ireland.

and we went out for a few. Only a few, I've been
drinking a lot more than usual since getting to
Europe, but still not that much. I'd tried the
busking thing again in Dresden, with no joy other
than getting invited to Turkey by a nice young
lass, and arriving in Frankfurt I still had bulk
kero left over.
So I burned it off. A little tipsy.
Smacked myself in the head pretty hard, burned my
hand pretty bad. The latter will probably leave my
first ever scar. It's a big one.
I'm ok. I heal fast.

There was some discussion as to whether the ultra
cheap airline RyanAir (forty euro Frankfurt to
London, could've got it for half that if I'd booked
earlier) could describe Hahn airport as being in
the vicinity of Frankfurt. I guess if they just
said Hahn no one would know where that was, but the
trip was an hour and three quarters and that bus
wasn't pissing around. It was going for gold mate.
Long queue, no legroom, but it was cheap and quick
and I was very happy with it all. The passport
stamper in London took one look at me and just
_knew_ I was going to Ireland to work illegally.
Stamped me anyway.
The plane was half an hour late, it took half an
hour to get through immigration and our luggage was
another half hour after that, so by the time I got
to the arrival lounge I wasn't surprised that Dean
wasn't there to meet me. I spent the rest of the
night camping in a tent formed by two airport bench
seats pushed together.

London. It's just one of those places where you say
to yourself, wow, I'm in London. I was misinformed.
People do talk on the tubes, people do smile, you
won't get smacked for making eye contact, the sun
did shine.
I was expecting roving mobs of bat wielding
hooligans, which of course there are, but to a
lesser degree.
Went to a museum that did not spoil me for all
other museums, did not take ecstasy, did not watch
the footy, lost twenty pounds somewhere. London's a
city. It does have a slightly different feel to it,
but it's just a city.
I did get to vote tho, go Green.
Early Sunday morning I snuck out of Dean and
Karen's attic apartment (thanks heaps, let me know
if that twenty pounds turns up) and damn near
missed my bus to Wales due to a hole in the subway
timetable that sent four trains past me before one
stopped.
Bus, world's second biggest car ferry, hyper
aggressive immigration official, Dublin.

I'm in Dublin.

A German hippy chick I met on the plane told me
about a big Rainbow Gathering in Tuscany early
August. I quite wanted to go to but have decided
not to, it'd cost too much flying there and back,
and by the time I got back to Ireland I would've
crossed the entirety of Europe SIX TIMES in three
months.
And that's just wrong.

Dublin's very cool. I was going to wwoof for a few
weeks but have decided instead to start flat and
job hunting right away. I think I can maybe do some
busking as well but there seems to be some sort of
national kerosene famine.
Hope for the best.

So that's basically my last two months. If epic
novella isn't a contradiction in terms then I guess
I just typed one. There was a bit more but my
grandmother reads these, and if she knew the all of
it she'd extradite my ass.

Much love

Daniel O'Connell
(Apparently with the O it's the name of some very
very famous historical Irish republican dude, so
I'll let people call me that.)