The kindness of strangers

I'm pretty stand offish towards strangers...or people in general.  I don't like to accept help most times.  I travel alone and have to be pretty guarded.  And I often don't get along with females that well.  A few stories highlighting parts of this.

First, the bad side of being open.  I was in London, on my first real solo trip, first city.  There was a tall American guy there, very open, positive, knew a few words in a few languages and was always quick to try them on any natives he met.  We hung out for a few days and he suggested I try to be more open to people.  Ok, I'll try...  I went to Brighton on the bus.  Wandered around, went to the pavilion (AMAZING) and then wandered down the pier.  Where I met some Sri Lankan guys about my age.  I decided to hang out and chat.  Then the smaller one suggested we go down to the beach.  I'm bigger than him and I'm being open to meeting new people, so ok.  We're there for about 10 minutes before he tries to put his tongue in my mouth and I had to excuse myself.  I walked to a tiny sandwich shop where I was the only customer.  The guy behind the counter took my order and when he was done, came around the counter to try to get me to kiss him.  These two incidents happened in the span of about 20 minutes.  During the day, sober.  Brighton has a bit of a gay scene, so perhaps these guys were excited to see a female, but it was completely unnerving.

A few years later, after a long time of bargaining in French with a Moroccan over some trinkets, I was so flustered that I actually ended up paying more than I was meant to at the beginning of the bargaining.  And then he tried to kiss me.  Dude totally ripped me off, and then wanted a kiss to seal the deal.  Different situation, but seemed an appropriate place to put the story.

Some examples of the kindness of strangers:

I was on the train in Belgium, en route to the airport, I believe on my way to my spring break trip (Spain, Morocco, Portugal).  The train stopped and there were some staticky messages in French over the intercom.  I asked a woman if she spoke English and if she could tell me what was going on.  Basically, the train was majorly delayed.  I told her I was on my way to the airport, and asked did she think I would miss my flight.  She immediately offered to drive me there, as her stop would be sooner.  We got off at her stop with plenty of time to spare, so we stopped by her house where I met her mother and daughter.  They then packed me some snacks for my trip and she took me to the airport.  Nothing expected, just being nice for niceness sake (though I don't really believe that, and neither did Abraham Lincoln, but that's not for here.)


After Morocco, I was in Seville.  Sort of.  I booked a hostel/guesthouse in Carmona.  Not realizing it was nearly an hour from Seville.  But it turned out to be a great idea.  I was in Spain for Semana Santa so I got to see how a smaller town celebrated.  Such a gorgeous town with stone fortifications surrounding it.  The hostel part was new and clean and there was a small pool.  Just lovely.  On my last day, I took the bus to Seville to buy a ticket to Portugal.  But they were all booked up.  So I bought a ticket for the next day and then took the bus back to Carmona to get a bed for the night.  Easier said than done.  After the hour long bus back, I found they had no beds for the night.  There was a snippy Dutch girl at the desk.  She said I could wait till midnight and if someone didn't show up, she'd give me their bed.  What else could I do.  I wandered a bit, but mostly just sat on a bench waiting till midnight.  It came, and there were no beds.  The snippy Dutch girl then offered her own bed.  She closed up shop, and we walked to her house.  There I helped her put the duvet cover on and we had some wine and snacks and then we went to bed.  Early the next morning I snuck out.  I can still see it in my head.  The sun was just coming up, she lived in a curve on a cobblestone street at the bottom of a hill.  I closed the huge door and made my way to the bus stop at the edge of town.  Some strong coffee from a cafe and I was on my way to Portugal, refreshed and with a new faith in humanity.

My 2nd trip to Italy

In 2000, I went to Germay for 2 weeks to visit Jan, my foreign exchange student friend.  Two weeks after I got back, I flew to Rome with my church youth group for World Youth Day.

Some things stand out about this trip:

  I was just shy of 18.  There was a cute hispanic guy on the trip, probably about 25.  I don't remember his first name, but his last name was Zavalas.  I've always loved that name.

It was August.  It is so hot in Rome in August, all the locals leave.  Rome was full of about 2 million "pilgrims" and then the remaining gypsies.

We were joined with the youth group from Asheville's Basilica.  That meant, there were too damn many of us.  And they refused to split.  Hence it took days for us to get anywhere.

It was so hot in the metro, I actually took my shirt off at one point and put something else on.

We spent the first few nights on the floor of a middle school in a small town outside of Roma.  The place nearly looked abandoned, perhaps it was.  But one thing I've learned, Italy is like a 3rd world country in a lot of places.  There was graffiti on the walls inside.  I remember Red Hot Chili Pepper lyrics about Kurt Cobain.

The school was across the street from a mexican restaurant and a bar.  There was a lattice fence between the two's patios.  There were about 4 of us under 21 that headed over there one night.  I found love in a drink called Punch.  Our chaperones were at the mexican restaurant next door.  Really not sure how we pulled that one off.  Especially considering I dropped a shot glass as I was walking past the doorway between the patios.

One night of our trip was spent in a field at Tor Vergata.  We walked quite a distance, probably a few miles (because it was a pilgrimage...).  At some point we get to a food station where they hand us some Sodexho boxes.  We proceed to carry our boxes until we finally get to the field, and then spend a while scouting out a campsite.  When we finally opened the boxes, we were pretty pissed we'd bothered carrying them.  I remember the pudding was good.  I didn't try the potted meat.  There was a lot of rationing for that day and a half.

Father John and Brother Bill brought air mattresses.  We leaned them together for shade and told Father it was his confessional.

People were raiding the nearby farms.  Finding plastic or wood to try to make shelters with.  It was excruciating heat.  At night the pope drove around in the popemobile and we called JP Junior, Nascar Driver.  Then he performed the longest mass I've ever attended.  Then there were fireworks.  I don't know what happened the next day.  Probably another mass.  Then we trekked back out.  Local vineyard owners sprayed us with hoses as we walked out.  It was a nice gesture.

Getting Risky in Lao

Shel and I visited a palace in Luang Prabang.  Maybe the President's house or something.  Either way, like many places, you weren't allowed to wear shoes...and there were long hallways...of a slick nature.

I risky business'd the hell out of that place!!

Ween....

On this solo European trip I bought an unlimited Eurail pass.  So in an effort to save some money on hostels, I would often take overnight trips.  Makes for an interesting tour I guess, literally criss-crossing Europe every few days.

Anyway, I was in Bruges and needed to go somewhere, so I went to the train station and looked for the longest journey.  I saw a long journey to Wien, which I pronounced Ween.  I had no idea where it was, but I also didn't really care.  I booked the train and proceeded to tell everyone in the hostel that I was going to Ween, inevitably giggling as I did so.  Later in the day, I was looking through the Eurail book and saw Wien again.  And in my head I thought, "If you pronounce that with a German accent it sounds like...ohhhhhh.  Right.  Vienna."

I kept my mouth shut about Ween after that.

That one time I rode a bike.

On my solo trip to Europe in 2004, I ended up in Bruges, Belgium for a few days.  I don't remember why I went there, but it's a lovely town.  Cobblestone, ass-jarring cobblestone, and canals and waffles.  I booked a ticket to "ween" for a few days later, and settled in to enjoy some beers and frites.  After about 2 days, I was bored.  I must have been extremely bored, because I decided that renting a bicycle was a good idea.  I hadn't ridden a bike in years, and as of now, this experiment was the last time my butt was on a bike.

The rental place gave me a hand drawn map of the area.  Took my bike outside...and pushed it.  All the way to the edge of town.  I don't remember if I even tried to ride it in town.  Bruges is pretty small, so it didn't take long, though my leg was raked to hell from brushing the peddle.  I got to the edge of town and there was huge bridge and lots of traffic, but also a huge bike lane.  So I managed myself over it while actually atop the two wheeled death machine.

So I have this "map".  I'm supposed to be going to Dama.  That was probably the shortest trip.  Just after the bridge was a turn onto a quaint road.  It was paved, but old.  And then, it was just me and the cows.  Fields and cows.  And I rode.  And then my legs started hurting and I was sure that I would be left for dead out here and the cows would turn carnivorous and eat me.  I didn't turn around though.  Because I'm an idiot I suppose.

This "map" was fairly useless.  I got to a "town" (are you tired of the air quotes yet?) which was essentially a crossroads.  There were maybe 3 buildings with a few businesses, but I'm pretty sure none were open.  Because I was lost and spoke enough French to ask for directions had they been open.  I picked a direction and continued riding. 

Magically, I came upon Dama.  A slightly larger town than the crossroads.  A huge church and a smattering of restaurants, etc.  I was exhausted, and god knows I love an afternoon nap.  So I rode in the church graveyard and had a little nap among the tombstones.  Either no one noticed or no one cared.

Post nap I wandered over the creek and then into the bar for a Kriek.  De-lish.  Let me make this clear, I only had one.  And those things are like 4% alcohol, so I was not even tipsy.

Get back to the bike path to ride home on the main road.  Get on bike.  Immediately fall into a bush.  And then I'm covered in something.  Except I can't see it.  There is nothing on my skin, but it feels like a thousand ants are biting me.  So I decided my skin had just spontaneously been infiltrated by tiny bugs.  But standing there isn't going to make them go away, so I get back on the bike.

Five minutes later I see a cyclist (spandex and everything) coming towards me on the bike path.  There is plenty of room for both of us.  But that doesn't concern me and I take him out anyway.  Yep, totally wiped him out.  Somehow, I managed to stay on my bike and proceeded to continue riding as if nothing happened. What the hell is wrong with me?

When I got back to town, even after these two disasters, I was comfortable enough to ride on the streets.  I was not, however, strong enough to ride with my butt off the seat.  And so the ass jarring cobblestones made the last bit of the trip the most miserable.