I barely remember Vienna. Maybe it was boring. Maybe I was tired, or in a bad mood. I took an overnight train from Bruges. It was my first trip with my Eurail pass! So I looked in the book for anywhere that was an overnight trip. To save a nights accommodation. I picked Wien. Which I immediately pronounced Ween, and gleefully told everyone I'd met in the Bruges hostel that I was going to Ween. It took about a day for me to realize that if you said Wien with a German accent it was Vien...Vienna. Idiot. So I took an overnight train to Vienna.
Met a very nice guy on the train in the dining car. He was eating tomato soup. The train split in two and he went to Italy. He didn't invite me to go, but I bet he wouldn't have argued if I'd asked. I should have asked.
I remember entering the hostel. I remember the church of Charles Borromeo. I remember meeting a Polish guy as I was sitting on the grass. That's about all I remember of Vienna.
My last memory of Vienna is the train station. I met two guys. One from Serbia, one from ... one of the countries Serbia doesn't like. They were DJs from Amsterdam now. On their way to Debrecen to play a festival. I was on my way to Budapest, a few hours before Debrecen. The non-Serb took a liking to me and invited me to come along. He seemed harmless, the other guy seemed morose. So off we go.
Just after Budapest. JUST AFTER, the train is stopped. Men in uniforms get on and take away my new friend. Now in retrospect, at this point, I could have gotten off and gone back to Budapest. I probably should have. But I didn't. I sat in mostly icy silence with the Serb. We continued onto Debrecen.
They set us up in a room with 3 small beds. Got us a tourguide for the day. It was nice weather. Eventually the Serb came out of his shell. He was uneasy about having a girl around when he had a fiancee. He also managed to drop that he hates Americans. We gave his mother a heart attack defending the asshole Albanians don't you know. He told me that he liked to corner American frat boys in the alleys of Amsterdam and threaten to kill them for it. He never went through with his threats, it was just to scare them. But you could see in his eyes, he was capable of it.
We got on well enough, as long as I went down to the cafe downstairs to buy cakes a few times a day. I didn't mind, he paid. I don't know how long I was there for. Maybe 3 days. The day of the festival, it poured and flooded and it was cancelled. So they had him DJ in a club. It was an awful experience. Rave dancers and what have you.
Eventually I went to a travel agent. He wouldn't let me just go to the train station. I bought a ticket to Bucharest, Romania. I got out of there.
I ran into him later in Amsterdam. He owns a record show there. In Deep n' Dance. I didn't ask about our friend.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
9/11
We're coming up on the 10th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center. I guess everyone has one of "those moments" that you never forget where you were. Kennedy assassination, MLK assassination...are they all assassinations? Maybe as far as global news goes, only bad things are unplanned. Anyway, figure it might be a question I get asked in the old folks home (assuming I'm senile enough to agree to go and not overdose on my pain meds.)
I was at UNC-Greensboro in the Interior Architecture program. I would have been in the program for just a few weeks, so probably still thought I'd make an architect of myself. I had a class with a gentleman that reminded you of Tom Jones had Tom Jones been taller, and a thug, and English. It was an art class. Ugh. So we were outside drawing...trees. Useless art teachers. Show up with a hangover, time to go outside and draw trees.
So I'm sitting there, hating my pencil, because that's whose fault it was that I couldn't draw a tree. An incredibly excited 50-ish black gentleman comes running up, with the look of a man that is excited to tell people first. Excited to see confusion. I've felt like that. I get it.
I don't remember exactly what he said, because I'd never heard of this building. I don't know if he said bomb, I don't know if he said planes hit the Twin Towers or the World Trade Center. All I remember is he had this excited grin and he said, "We're going to war, planes are already in the air".
Our teacher, not quite knowing what was happening, but not wanting to be seen as an English Prick later, said we could leave if we wanted. So we all did.
I went back to the International dorm that I lived in. People there were confused, but looking at it like an American thing, way up North. I watched some footage, and called my boyfriend, or maybe he was my ex at this point. Probably. He was going camping. His reaction was, He can't do anything about it, and if we're getting blown away, he's probably safer in the woods. I couldn't fault him, but I wanted to be agitated and he was too calm.
Eventually Greensboro got listed as something like number 10 in the list of places likely to be attacked. Seemed highly unlikely but there's some sort of chemical factory there or something.
I guess that's about it. I didn't know anyone, I didn't know anyone who knew anyone. I know there was a really sweet girl in my dorm from Iraq, and I know a friend told her to quit publicizing that at some point. It's amazing how fast it became an Iraqi problem.
I was at UNC-Greensboro in the Interior Architecture program. I would have been in the program for just a few weeks, so probably still thought I'd make an architect of myself. I had a class with a gentleman that reminded you of Tom Jones had Tom Jones been taller, and a thug, and English. It was an art class. Ugh. So we were outside drawing...trees. Useless art teachers. Show up with a hangover, time to go outside and draw trees.
So I'm sitting there, hating my pencil, because that's whose fault it was that I couldn't draw a tree. An incredibly excited 50-ish black gentleman comes running up, with the look of a man that is excited to tell people first. Excited to see confusion. I've felt like that. I get it.
I don't remember exactly what he said, because I'd never heard of this building. I don't know if he said bomb, I don't know if he said planes hit the Twin Towers or the World Trade Center. All I remember is he had this excited grin and he said, "We're going to war, planes are already in the air".
Our teacher, not quite knowing what was happening, but not wanting to be seen as an English Prick later, said we could leave if we wanted. So we all did.
I went back to the International dorm that I lived in. People there were confused, but looking at it like an American thing, way up North. I watched some footage, and called my boyfriend, or maybe he was my ex at this point. Probably. He was going camping. His reaction was, He can't do anything about it, and if we're getting blown away, he's probably safer in the woods. I couldn't fault him, but I wanted to be agitated and he was too calm.
Eventually Greensboro got listed as something like number 10 in the list of places likely to be attacked. Seemed highly unlikely but there's some sort of chemical factory there or something.
I guess that's about it. I didn't know anyone, I didn't know anyone who knew anyone. I know there was a really sweet girl in my dorm from Iraq, and I know a friend told her to quit publicizing that at some point. It's amazing how fast it became an Iraqi problem.
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