I am now in Budapest (which is way more fun to say in its correct pronunciation: Budapeshht).
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First observation: Do the gods of weather just know when they're residing on top of a former Eastern Bloc country? Is there some sort of meteorological explanation for the fact that Communist countries have gray skies at all times? This is my second time to this place ... never seen the sun. Same with Prague two years ago.

We'll see how long this can keep up.
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Second observation: I believe the phrase is, "I lucked out."

From Breck to his cousin Leslie to her friend Mali to her friend Kata -- Texas to New Orleans to Wisconsin to Paris to Szeged -- here I am in this apartment overlooking a Budapest street, counting my lucky stars that I was able to land such a sweet set-up with a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend.

Twenty-six years old -- as of midnight last night -- and fresh into the business world ("I suggest you never stop traveling," my host said in frustration with her new life over beers last night), Kata has all the makings of someone that will be a very good friend of mine once I leave Hungary.

Her nice-ometer is off the charts. Apologizing profusely over email that she couldn't take a day off of work to come pick up a total stranger at the airport (even after she told me to come on Friday ... and I promptly booked an EasyJet flight for Wednesday); coming to meet me at the train station and apologizing some more for being, gasp, ten minutes late; taking me out last night with her friends to two of the sweetest bars I have ever been to; leaving me a note this morning when she left for work that told me to "eat whatever I want....use the computer, no password necessary....and take these (generic Advils) if you have a headache.... :)"

I don't know if someone told her or not, but these are all ways to get on my good side.

Then there's her good friend Atilla (yes, there are Hungarian people who still name their children after the infamous Hun).

"Oh, you listen to reggae music?" Kata asked. "Well I will call my friend; he likes that kind of music a lot, as well."

By a lot, Kata meant a hell of a lot.

Enough to the point of him knowing all the reggae DJ's in this town, and him taking us to one of their parties last night.

I don't know how on Jah's earth I keep meeting these people, but please, Lord, don't let it stop. Sitting under the open night sky at this outdoor bar, a reggae selecta spinning nothing but the best riddims, surrounded by unbelievably gorgeous Hungarian girls on all sides and having the best of conversations with Kata and Atilla until 2:30 in the morning.

I'd say that was a good start to my Hungarian adventure.

And oh, by the way. The birthday party I'm going to in the southern Hungarian town of Szeged -- the one in celebration of Kata and her twin brother's 26th -- is on a boat. Oh, man. Oh. Man.

Even though the only people reading this are most likely already on "the list," by which I mean the dreaded "Read My Family's Columns Or Die" automated message system churned out by The Bob -- something that once you're on, there's no escape from -- I felt the need to direct everyone to my mother's most recent column.

Before you read it, be warned: She is disgusting. ("Primarily because I’ve learned to fake certain acts in the dark — like reading menus in restaurants with lighting so low it would freeze water. I usually just tell the waiter, “I’ll have that,” pointing to whatever"). Hey, Mom. You've got three kids. Therefore it is obvious you must have had sex at least three times (well, you were married once before, so four times). We don't need these vague references to coitus in a West University, family-oriented publication. If this was said on television, or the radio, Michael Powell would have been outraged.

"Long Tooth Birthday"

But despite that, this may be the funniest one I have read in a long time. Anthony Hopkins, post-stroke, hahhahahaah.... you'll see.

What are you doing this weekend?

Me? Oh, I'm doing pretty much the same, except for when I go to this birthday party in Szeged, Hungary -- a town I've never heard of near the Romanian and Serbian borders -- as the personal guest of the birthday girl, Kata.

Nah, I don't know Kata. Nor do I know her twin brother. But I did get to hang out with one of their friends in Voiron, France two weekends ago. That is about the extent of my connection to these siblings whose birthdays I am going to celebrate in grand fashion a few days from now.

I am finally leaving the home base in Switzerland, and though Bibi jokes, I know she will miss me.

Western Europe -- that portion of the trip is now officially over. Let the real stuff begin. I'm off to Budapest, where I will once again have a free place to stay, this time with someone I have never met.

Damn I am good.

Courmayeur.

See how it fades from white to gray in the middle there? That's where the glacier is, and where the glacier used to be.


But Al Gore is still just a liberal fear-mongerer -- a sore loser who just wants to make George Bush look bad, isn't he?

We need to follow nature's lead and take a serious look in the mirror, kind of like this mountain is doing. What kind planet are we going to leave for our children's children? Sure, economic growth is important, but I'd say other things count a little bit as well.


Never forget how small and insignificant we really are. We think we're all that; nature just laughs and keeps on keepin' on.


Even the economics major agrees, folks.

 

Courmayeur, Italy.

The Italian Alps -- just like the Swiss Alps, or the French, or Austrian or Slovenian -- are pretty much amazing.

I took a little walk in them last Saturday, in the Aosta Valley. Today is Tuesday. My quads still hurt.

My new Barcelonan friend Javier, a distant cousin of Bibi's who has been staying at Chez Knapp all month while completing an internship Breck landed him at Heritage Bank's Geneva branch, is a great example of why it's important to surround yourself with the right kinds of people. Alone, I exercise as much as Howard Taft. When forced to get off my ass by active people, I am as mobile as a cell phone.

Sleeping in Javier's car, we awoke to quite a buena vista.


Through the sun roof, there was the Mont Blanc (or Monte Bianco, since we were viewing it from Italian territory), the highest peak in Europe at 4,808 m (15,774 ft.). On good days, you can get a more distant view of La Dame Blanche from Breck's back patio.

On good days.

But since the forecast throughout the country of Switzerland last weekend was rain, rain and more rain -- and Javier was itching like he had a colony of fire ants in his pants to get into "the mountains" -- he found the one spot in which sunshine was expected and bought a map to get ready: Western Italy was where we were headed as soon as the workweek was finished.

As soon as we got back from an afternoon chilling in Geneva, and despite the fact that I once again forgot to bring my passport when entering a foreign country (I swear, my mom must have dropped me on my head repeatedly as a child), we made it through without getting checked.


Which was a stroke of luck, indeed. Because this is what I'm talking about, baby. The Alps.
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Javier is a mountain man. There's no better description for him. The fact that he's doing a bank internship, and that he studies economics at his university in Barcelona, is more of a distraction to discovering the real Javier than it is a guide. ¿Economía? Try las montañas. That is Javier's real future -- if he wants to be happy with his life, at least.


Toots -- Breck and Bibi's 14-year-old daughter -- may make fun of him by constantly serenading him with a song she wrote especially for their Catalonian guest: "The mountains, the mountains, the mountains" (over and over and over). But I doubt the kid cares. Sometimes I think he secretly wishes he could find a wedding ring big enough to fit around one of those hunks of rock formed by the collision of the earth's plates. He is from the biggest party city in Spain, Barcelona, yet he flees to the Pyrenees every single weekend to seek refuge in the soft embrace of a hard rock -- Javier is the most avid rock climber I have ever met.

He even tried to take me to a little spot in Yverdon -- 25 minutes from Morges and Chez Knapp -- the day after we trekked all through the Aosta Valley. If my legs still hurt today (Tuesday), just take a guess at how they felt on Sunday. I had spent the day of rest resting. Javier had spent it beating Breck at his own game: His time in the Lausanne triatholon was four minutes faster than his boss at Heritage, who attends triatholons almost as often as Bibi attends Mass. Javier? Oh, it was his first time to try one.


So my surrogate hermano is smarter than me about money, better than me with languages, more athletic than I could ever dream of being ... AND he's a better photographer. I tried four times in a row to get a good shot of myself in front of this snow-capped mountain, and this was the best I could do.

But I totally know more about baseball. 

No one had ever questioned it before last Friday. My dad is "The Bob." Mine. Not yours. Not anyone else's, either. Just the one and only. To have a definite article placed in front of your name, after all, requires a lot of intangibles -- the most important being a smartass wife to bestow it upon you -- and in terms of the Roberts I know, it's not even close.

Robert Strake Parsley is The Bob.


It's how he has been referred to in nearly 1,000 columns since my mother began to write, followed by her extremely good-looking son a few years later. The only reason we haven't patented the name yet is because we didn't think we needed to -- what were the odds that there was someone else out there who may lay claim to the same moniker?

The answer -- as I found out recently in Aosta, Italy -- is "better than you think."


Meet Javier.

Javier is from Barcelona. He is 22, just like me, but he is spending his summer waking up right when the alarm sounds, rather than hitting the snooze. Ever since I arrived back at the Knapps two weeks ago from Eindhoven, Javier has been my surrogate hermano in a family full of surrogate pères, mères, frères et sœurs.

Even though it may make as much sense as a kid named Bayless going by "Billy," Javier is also known as "The Bob."
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"Ooohh, where did you get that keychain?" The yellow piece of foam laying on the table had immediately caught my eye when Javier set it down.


"This? Oh, one time, when my friends and I were in Holland, I was driving, and all of the sudden, the police, he make me get out of the car and do a..." Javier began to blow into an imaginary object, asking for some help from the native English speaker.

"The breathalizer."

"Yes, the breatha-leye-zer," he continued. "But I had not been drinking, not at all, you see, and so I blew 0.00, nothing."

I waited in silence, fascinated to see how this story was going to lead into how Javier became The Bob.

"And because I blew nothing, the police officer, he said to come over to him, and he gave me this." He picked up the keychain before plopping it back down onto the table. "In Holland, apparently, 'The Bob' is the one who stays, and drink the most beer at the bar. 'The Bob' stays until the bar closes," Javier explained in his thick Cataluña accent. "And so the police officer, by giving me a keychain that said 'The Bob,' he was being ironic."

This was the first I had heard of all this. I took a few seconds to reflect, furrowing my brow as I continued to stare straight ahead at my friend on the opposite side of the booth.

"So..... what you're saying is, you are The Bob."

There was no hesitation; just time to form a smile.

"Yes. I am The Bob."


Of course, Javier didn't realize until I explained immediately thereafter the significance of what he had just said. He didn't know he was sitting across the table from the Son of The Bob. But once I filled him in, he refused to defer to his elders.

"We are both The Bob," he said, laughing.

Yeah, we shall see about that, Javier. If you leave your keys alone for just one second, that piece of foam is mine -- and it's getting shipped home to Texas, where it belongs.

Alpha Blondy & the Solar System.
And the End of Chapter 1.
Professor Finder's smile was incredulous; he had patiently absorbed my entire pitch, and was now leaning back in his office chair -- surrounded by books on Zionism and the fate of postwar European Jews -- as he pondered a response to such an unorthodox request. Reggae? Rastafari? Jerusalem? Behind the front of skepticism, I could see an inner core of intrigued amusement; that was all which was keeping him from rejecting my idea out of hand.

Old enough to have a thick beard full of gray streaks, yet still young and open-minded enough to even contemplate granting permission to an idea as far outside of the box as an uncoiled jack, I could tell my Jerusalem: From Antiquity to Present HIST 401 seminar instructor was teetering between "No way" and "Why the hell not?"

"So, Mr. Parsley, you think you can write a 30-page thesis on Jerusalem's role in reggae music and Rastafare-ee-uh-nism?" the consummate Jewish professor asked, pronouncing the last word almost solely through his nose. By his tone, I got the feeling that this true academic first wanted clarification that yes, he had heard me correctly.

"Pretty much, yeah," I said with faux assuredness -- in truth, I had no idea whether or not a few superficial links between "the music of the heart" and the City of David would materialize into anything worth reading.

And though he didn't admit it outright until months later, neither had Professor Finder.

He could tell how adamant I was about getting a chance to prove myself, and so after the obligatory warnings that I not take this lightly, that it was a serious academic paper we were supposed to be researching, and that if I discovered early on that it wasn't feasible, to make sure and find another topic ... he shrugged his shoulders, raised his eyebrows and took a flier.

"I'll be very interested to see how this turns out."

And trust me, so was I.
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As I walked out of Randall Hall that morning in February 2005, into the cold Charlottesville air that pierced through a thick layer of unkempt hair covering my ears but was repelled by the black Bob Marley hoodie insulating my torso, I legitimately did not know if I would be able to pull this one off.

Mount Zion, "By the rivers of Babylon," Stars of David painted red, gold, black and green, the Conquering Lion of Judah that could supposedly break every chain, a band called Israel Vibration and some guy who loved to moan "Oooh, ohhhhhh, the Israelites" ... that was pretty much all the framework I had in mind for the massive undertaking which I had just talked my way into.

I gulped. Question marks swirled. The can-do spirit I took into Professor Finder's office suddenly began to devolve into one of Can-I-do? self-doubt.

"There better be something out there a little more concrete than what I've got so far," I thought to myself, so preoccupied with when's and where's and what's and how's that I had ceased to even hear the words coming forth from the little white headphones jammed into my ears.

Little did I know that my research would lead me to Alpha Blondy, and later, to the Reggae Sundance Festival in Eindhoven, NL.
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"Let's see..." The cursor was developing quite a rhythm as it waited in the Google search bar for a little push to the right. "How about 'jerusalem reggae singers?'" Enter.

0.07 seconds later, I had the answer to my prayers.

"Alpha Blondy? I've heard of that guy before."

I started to read.

"Hmmm, a reggae singer from Côte D'Ivoire who has an album -- and a song -- called 'Jerusalem,'" I said aloud, plopped down in the turquoise, disco-era couch providing a modicum of comfort in my drafty, unheated room.

"Jackpot."

I remember the day we met clearly, as I do with all my love affairs. Immediately after the (very) fruitful Google search, my web browser was routed to Amazon.com, where I purchased a package deal of Jerusalem and Apartheid is Nazism, Alpha Blondy's signature album.

Those two discs were used and abused over the next few weeks -- the most fun I ever had doing my homework. Even a short jaunt over to Shady Grady to get beer wasn't possible unless I first grabbed one of them by the doughnut hole, ready to be eaten by the CD player in Jamison's late-model Explorer before being ejected less than two songs later. Politiqui, Sebe Allah Y'e, Come Back Jesus, Apartheid is Nazism, and of course...

"Jeeeeehhhrusaleeeeemm, here I am." A place where "you can see Christians, Jews and Muslims, living together and praying, 'Amen. Let's give thanks and praises.'" A place holy "from the Bible to the Quran. Revelation in Jerusalem. Shalom, Salamalekum."

And this is a reggae song, sung by a black dude with dreads?


As they say in Côte D'Ivoire, "Oui. Pourquoi pas?"

I came to find out, during the course of the research which lasted an entire semester, that this guy also had albums called Masada, Yitzhak Rabin and Elohim, which sure weren't words being taught in the French 105 class I was taking in addition to my Jerusalem seminar.

What eventually became my favorite Alpha Blondy tune is the title track from Masada. In it, the artist formerly known as Seydou Koné sanctifies the plateau by that name situated on the Dead Sea. In 73 C.E., Masada served as the final outpost of the Great Jewish Revolt -- a mass uprising that reached a flashpoint in 70 C.E. with the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, but came to its tragic, bloody conclusion when a group of Hebrews known as the Zealots committed mass suicide on top of the elevated fortification, in lieu of submitting to the Roman forces below.

When the Solar System band kicked into the opening chords of Masada at the Sundance, all the fatigue I had been feeling -- all the aches and pains and thirst and hunger -- it just disappeared. Happy to be alive is what I was; like Izzy Vibe would want, I gave thanks to Jah I was still around. And so, inspired by the words I was hearing, I made a promise to myself that, should I still make it to Israel on this trip, I would do my best to imitate Alpha Blondy: "I'm gonna sleep by the Dead Sea, and rise up with the birds from the hills, and clean up my sins, while the birds sing. I'm gonna walk up to the top, of the rock of sacrifice, cause I know now, that life ain't no dice. Yes I know now, that life is a sacrifice. I'm gonna witness Jah rising sun from Masada."
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The entire day -- from the bus driver in Utrecht who decided that he just didn't "feel" like picking me up at the 41 stop, to getting on the wrong train en route to Arnhem, to the locker fiasco, to meeting Max, and then Chris, to the great performances put on by Izzy Vibe, Don Carlos, Steel Pulse and finally Alpha Blondy himself -- all I could think about was this sense of closure I felt within me.

Though I knew I would be returning to the home base in Switzerland the next day, no longer with a Eurail Pass and without an exact plan as to what would come next, I knew that the first chapter of my journey was coming to a close there in Eindhoven. What was to come in Switzerland would be like that transitional page between acts in a Shakespeare play: A respite, a time to earmark the corner, get up and stretch your legs. Chapter 2, whenever it was to begin, would only come once I made it out of Western Europe, and into a part of the world in which I felt a lot less ... comfortable.

Once the sun began to set on that park in Eindhoven, and the sweltering August heat gave way to a cool, night breeze, the energy around me exuded a culmination of sorts. The day was finished, as were the nine weeks spent backpacking across Western Europe. As was the summer. As was the third and final European reggae festival I had been to since that magical night in Abenberg, when, alongside Hunter, Chase and Jamison, I finally saw Gentleman.

As I scanned the crowd through the fog of ganja smoke hovering in the air like the guest that just won't leave, I felt the culmination of years spent researching this music, and the Rastafarian faith that serves as its very foundation. Funny that a white, non-Rasta kid from Texas probably knew more about the meaning behind the music than any other baldhead for miles -- no matter how natty their "designer dreads" were, or how ubiquitous the image of Haile Selassie I throughout their wardrobes of red, green and gold.

It was then, during Alpha Blondy's final song, that our love affair came full circle. Alone on stage, with nothing but the voice given to him by Jah, he began to sing: Barouh Atat Adonai, Barouh Abba Yeroushalaim...

Jeeeerusaleeemmmm, here I am. Jeeeerusalemmmm, je t'aime.


The song that introduced me to Alpha Blondy -- the one that helped me get an A on a UVa thesis paper that blew away all expectations Professor Finder, and myself, ever had -- was the song he used to bid me adieu. Culmination, indeed. I don't know if the story could have a better ending.


But a culmination doesn't necessarily mean the end. As the sun sets, the moon rises. And then the sun, it comes up once again. Life goes on. And so, as college has ended, my life goes on -- and that doesn't mean I have to put on a tie and start listening to talk radio all of the sudden. I may soon temper the lifestyle that I have been living for the past four years, but I will never change the way in which I live my life.

And I will never, ever stop listening to reggae music.

 

Israel Vibration.
There isn't a more hypnotic voice than the lead singer in Izzy Vibe.

They've been around forever. Meaning, they're old -- how old, I have no idea. Just look at their Something About Mary "Tucker" crutches. Here is the question: Are those supposed to be a joke highlighting the fact that they know they're as ancient as petroleum, or do these guys really need Tucker crutches?

Judging by the fact that one of the guys -- twice, not once -- mistakenly thanked the lively crowd in Amsterdam for coming out, I'd guess they really might need them.

No matter. With that many years under their belts, it's just like my favorite Izzy Vibe song says: They've got to "give thanks to Jah they're still around."
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Don Carlos (formerly of Black Uhuru).
Black Uhuru is truly one of the most influential groups this genre of music has ever known. From the moment my NOLS Alaska instructor told me to check out their album Liberation Anthology in the summer of 2002, they have been one of my favorite bands.

But the first thing that comes to mind when I hear their name mentioned isn't dreads, or my NOLS course, or a bass guitar, or anything you might guess.

I think of Nick Pigneri, Miguel San Juan and Tony Kamel -- three friends from my days at Strake Jesuit.


It's because the first song I hear in my head is "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" -- a Black Uhuru take off of the Sidney Poitier classic, and also the title of one of my Life columns for the Cav Daily (which my mom brazenly copied just a year later, in a shameless display of theft).

The Pig and the Cuban dictator just think it's a hilarious song, and love to serenade me with it every time I see them.

Guess who's coming to dinnuuuuuuuuuhhhh, NATTY DREADLOCK! Guess who's coming to dinnuuuuuuuuuhhhh, NATTY DREADLOCK! (And so on and so forth, until I tell them to shut the hell up).

Tony Kamel, on the other hand, actually likes the song. In fact, he's had it periodically stuck in his head ever since he was a little kid, when he heard it on some movie that he cannot remember. But for a kid born to a very Italian mother who cooks for the entire nation of Sicily on a daily basis, the song stuck in little Anthony's brain for a reason.

He remembered it as a song that was singing about food.

Guess what's cooking for dinnuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhh, NATTY DREADLOCK!

Last summer, when we were living together in Austin, Tony finally heard the song again after going so many years without being able to get it out of his head. It was like letting a cat out of the bag after keeping the zipper shut for 15 years.

"I can't believe you have this song!!!!! WOW!"

Well, guys, you're never gonna guess which song Don Carlos played at the Sundance. Only, since he didn't have his original group with him, it was a little different this time around.

"Guess who's coming to dinnnuhhhhhhh, DON CARLOS!"

To say that it brought a smile to my face would be an understatement. I would have paid millions to have seen Nick Pigneri in the crowd, just to see him going NUTS among all the heads and Rastas in his midst. And then, we would've gone to pick up Tony so we could meet up at Miguel's. Along the way, we'd have Tony call "Mom" San Juan and say "What's cooking for dinnnuhhhhhh?"

"PA-ELLLLLL-AHHH," the Cuban would reply.
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Steel Pulse.

Steel Pulse is twice as famous as Black Uhuru and Izzy Vibe combined. Like Gentleman, they have proved to be extremely elusive from ever allowing me the joy of seeing them play live. I had a ticket in hand to see them in February 2005 in Falls Church, Va. -- a little run-in with the traffic cops prevented that from going down. Then, last spring at UVa I had another ticket to see them at StarrHill -- and they cancelled the show.

My Redemption Song came in Eindhoven.

I don't really have anything else besides that to tell you, except to say, they were as good as billed. But it was nothing compared to what was the come after them -- the headliner of the festival, Alpha Blondy.

Reggae Sundance: My Summer Reggae Festival Season's Curtain Call. The Trilogy Is Now Complete.

After finally seeing Gentleman -- my favorite artist in the world, and one that I had been trying in vain to witness in the flesh for over two years -- with three of my best friends at the very end of their European adventure, and then the three days spent on a man-made island at SummerJam in Cologne less than a month afterwards, I knew that the Reggae Sundance Festival in Eindhoven, NL would be up against some pretty stiff competition in attempting to take me to the I-est of Ites on the very day that my two-month Eurail Pass was set to expire.


It wasn't a lackluster line-up or a slew of disappointing performances that was to blame for the bronze medal that the Sundance received on the podium August 13, when the Trilogy that also included Burg Open Air and SummerJam was complete. In fact, pure music wise, if we're talking overall, I think Jah may have been saving the best for last. Every single group -- Israel Vibration, Don Carlos (formerly of Black Uhuru), Steel Pulse and Alpha Blondy -- is part of the Who's Who Guide to Reggae Music.

But I just didn't get that same feeling as I usually get. Sure, there were moments. Moments when tears literally began to well, when goosebumps could not be controlled, and when I received bursts of energy from a certain one drop bass beat, or a certain soul-touching lyric. But it wasn't consistent. For long periods, due to a reason I could not explain, the inspIration was in short supply.

And it was timing, simply timing, that was the reason why.

I wasn't even wearing shoes, yet they were full of rocks -- deadweights around my feet when I tried to pick them up and move. I didn't have the energy. I didn't feel the same magic. I had a great time, because after all, I was seeing some of the greatest reggae bands ever to grace Jah earth. But from Izzy Vibe, to Don Carlos, to Steel Pulse to Alpha Blondy, I actually found myself kind of hoping that the day would just end -- that I could just be left with the memory, which would be a good one, no doubt. I know this is no way to live life -- I hate travelers who hit hot spots with a checklist, so that they can mathematically quantify how "successful" their trip has been -- but I couldn't help it: The penultimate desire emanating from my corpus was to rest my weary body, mind and spirit.

For a good, long, while.


Chalk it up to the general, cumulative fatigue engendered by seven weeks of dashing about Europe, alone with my lumbering, mondo REI pack and my speedy, miniature Osprey Solo after my friends left me for good to return home: From Holland -- when Hunter and I gave each other one last bear hug, despite the big bags strapped to our backs -- to France to Switzerland to Italy to Switzerland to Spain to France to Germany to Holland to Germany to Denmark to Norway ... and back to Holland.

I get tired just typing something that long, let alone living it for nearly 60 days.


Fittingly, I also got tired simply trying to make it to Sundance. Seeing as Utrecht was only a stone's throw away from Eindhoven, it proved a much more difficult task than I had envisioned. It was as if Jah, or whoever He is, just didn't want to see it happen.

I got up late that morning in the hostel where I was staying -- no worries; none of the good bands would start until at least mid-afternoon, I told myself with crossed fingers.

Then, at the bus stop by my hostel, the dreaded 41 bus simply flew right past me, despite there being about 40 open seats waiting for my butt and my luggage. The blurred faces of the three or four lone passengers on board whizzed by me as the driver sped on, either oblivious to the two of us waiting to get on or just having a really bad day.

"WHAT THE F**K WAS THAT ALL ABOUT?!" I exclaimed, furious, and even more late at this point. I had wanted to have a stress-free day, get to Eindhoven early, figure out where I was going to camp (I needed to make friends; I had no tent), and just enjoy the music without having to deal with the hassle and the bullshit.

"Don't worry, it's a nice day," my temporary companion -- a very weird Italian Brit who thinks the Illuminati is responsible for everything from 9/11 to rising oil prices, just because he "read it on the Internet" -- said. He may have thought that the leather jacket/soul patch thing was hot, and he may have eaten one too many paint chips as a kid, but the man was right.

It was a beautiful day, and I soon calmed down, ready for 40 more minutes of enlightenment.com.

Nearly an hour passes. The next bus had been so kind as to actually pick us up. I am finally at the train station. Feverishly perusing the yellow posterboard of departure times and destinations, I find what I'm looking for: Eindhoven, one minute from now.

"I am making it onto that train." And I begin to sprint.

But in my haste, as I clambered down the already moving escalator (or the d'escalator, as the ones going down should be called), I forgot to do a very important thing: I forgot to make sure that the train I was hopping on -- the one with the doors open and clearly about to depart in about 20 seconds -- was my train. In my head, all that had existed at the time was "Train. Eindhoven. Leaving. Spoor 12. Soon."

I only found out later, when I had arrived in Arnhem -- not Eindhoven -- that I had mistakenly hopped on the train outbound from Spoor 11. The Eindhoven train had either just departed, or there had been a delay.

This could have been a disaster that sent my entire house of cards fluttering to the ground. Instead, it turned out to be a minor nuisance.

Luckily, Arnhem was to the east; Eindhoven was to the southeast. Everything's gonna be all right was right, just like Robert Nesta says. A small delay, nothing more. After my mistake was corrected, and I had hopped on the hour long commute down to Eindhoven, the only thing on my mind was finding a locker in the station, and then heading towards the campground with a change of clothes and a sleeping bag. I'd worry about finding somewhere to put my stuff once I arrived -- making friends at reggae festivals is about as difficult as finding sand on a beach.

But you'll never guess what happened -- the goddamn Eindhoven station lockers only accepted credit cards. Mastercard, to be exact. The kind I don't carry in my wallet.

Priceless.

Seemingly everyone I asked to swipe me in in exchange for the money in coins was mysteriously denied by the electronic reader, as if the machine knew they were trying to do a favor for the Yank standing behind them, peeking over their shoulder as they swiped their card a second, third and fourth time, before giving up.

It looked like I was going to have to bring my entire life with me, packed into that tattered REI backpack.

And then I met Max.

"The lockers don't work?" he asked, observing my attempts to coordinate a coins-for-credit swap that failed time and time again.

"Naw man."

"I really need a locker though, to put my stuff in for the festival," he preached to the choir, which had a membership of one. "Let me call my friends really quick; they are already at the campsite."

Two minutes later, this tall, pale and not too handsome Dutchman had a solution for us.

"My friends said we can just put our stuff in their tent. Let's go."

Was Max a guardian angel? I do not know -- I never saw him again once we got to the campground. He introduced me to his buddy Chris and his hot redhead friend Mirloos (sp?), and then he disappeared. But I had my storage tent, and I had it just in time. I glanced down at my watch: 3:57.

"Can you say PERFECT TIMING?" I rejoiced inside. Izzy Vibe was set to come on at four. I had made it, just in time.


The music was great; I really did enjoy myself, despite the fatigue of mind and body. But once it came time to sleep, I was out in the cold -- literally. While Chris was extremely generous in letting me keep my valuables "locked" away inside his tent, he was not as open about letting me keep my body in there.

"Well, I guess I've been carrying this tarp around with me for a reason." So I laid it across the already wet grass, at about midnight I'd say, and rolled out my sleeping bag. It took about five seconds after my eyelids closed for me to be carried away into Dream Land.

And about an hour for me to be brought back from it.

"Wake up, wake up" is all I remember hearing. It was still pitch black outside. Two figures that I had never seen before were hovering over me. They were wearing uniforms; naturally, I thought, "Cops."

"What the hell did I do this time?" I wondered from a deep haze, my mind fully confused at why I was being woken up in the middle of the night for a crime I (hoped) I had not committed.

"It's too cold outside, come with us to our tent." It took a few more sentences of explanation, but I eventually realized that these uniformed mystery men (and woman) weren't cops at all. Quite the opposite. These were Red Cross employees, summoned by a concerned tent neighbor who worried about the risk of some poor soul sleeping outside in such harsh cold. True, I had put on my hoodie and rain jacket -- in addition to my Carhartts and wool socks -- in an attempt to stay warm through the night. But even with the extra layers, it was still damn cold, and I knew it.

Even so, I was beat. It was late. I wanted to sleep. But the Red Cross people insisted, and well ... they didn't have to twist my arm. The more I thought about it, the more I realized the comparative differences between a cot and the gound. And after about ten seconds, I got up to make the move.

And a good decision it was. My only question is, why does anybody bring their own tent when they could get a cot for free? I'm doing it from here on out.

I missed my bus; I got to experience a beautiful day until the next one came. I got on the wrong train; so I just corrected the mistake and got on the next one. Couldn't get a locker to work; so I just met someone who had a friend with a tent available to store my stuff. And I had nowhere to sleep; so the Red Cross came and saved me. All problems -- and solutions -- provided by this traveling without a plan thing that drives my parents a bit nuts at times.

Not that it always works out that perfectly, but I do think there is a lesson to be learned from this day:

Sometimes, the best plans are the ones that don't exist. 

Hey Dad, do you guys have some international corporate rule at Colliers that says "All phone numbers must consist only of the digits '2' and '1' (and if you have to, a 'o')?"

I mean, I guess it's a good thing for the children of Colliers employees -- when I was a kid, the "two-two-two-twenty-one-eleven" number was easy peasy for whenever I had a question about where my baseball glove was, or if you were actually going to be on time for our game that day so that we could hit balls before, or what time you were "leaving in five minutes" from the office to pick me up to go to the Dome so that I could know I had a good hour to shower and get dressed.


I was just wondering, because the Eindhoven branch has the same set-up. 

Editor's note: Josefine is not as dumb as I mistakenly made her out to be. Here is an excerpt from a recent email of complaint I received from her:

"and just for the record - the 50 million was mentioned in connection to number of inhabitants in Sweden - not norway. Norway is huge but no one wants to live there... (standard scandi-joke)."

Ouch, if you're Norway. You gonna take that, Lorentzens? I'm sure Didrik would have a rebuttal for her.

And to think, as recently as a month ago I would have told you that I didn't really like Italians all that much.

Just let me know when I can remove the size 45½ (my "when in Rome" size) shoes from my mouth.

The turnaround began at Christiania, the hippie commune enclave in the heart of Copenhagen. An Italian couple -- Andreas and Luisa -- asked me to snap a photo of them on the bridge. Three hours plus a round of beers later, we were exchanging email addresses, hugs and promises that we would see each other again someday.

Then there was Mateo and Sara -- the first two people pictured from left to right below -- who happened to be the ones I asked for help in finding the No. 41 bus from Utrecht Central Station to the StayOkay Hostel, fifteen minutes away and in the middle of nowhere. We shared a room together the first night; they bought me a big Heineken in the hostel bar; and we were all breakfast buddies the next morning.

But it was Martin and Daniella (yes, Daniella was a guy, who ironically rocked a pony tail) who fully completed my conversion to the "Italians are okay in my book" camp.


If life always went as planned, we would miss out on all the exciting stuff. Things that seemingly suck at first glance don't always suck when you look back on them. Some of the best memories grow out of the worst of circumstances. And that is the story of my friendship with Martin and Daniella, two best friends InterRailing Europe before they had to go home to Genova.


I only had one bullet on the itinerary for my first night in Utrecht, once I had returned to town to get a taste of the city: Make it back in time to catch the last 41 bus at 12:55. It wasn't hard. Just one thing. 12:55. Last bus. Utrecht Central. Or else I'd have a lot of walking to do.

I almost made it. I was in the middle of a great conversation -- on a bench beside a beautiful canal, having a great time -- and cut it short for the explicit purpose of making my bus.

"It's the last one, I've got to go," I explained to Regonja and Rien, a Dutch couple who both work for different American multinational corporations.

And I left, even though I would have loved to have chatted with them for the rest of the night about Mars, PepsiCo., their views on the American "can do" spirit versus the Dutch acceptance of birth status, and the fact that Rien apparently meant "Nothing" to his parents -- who I hope and pray did not realize the French translation of their son's name.

But I just had to get those goddamn french fries and mayonnaise, didn't I? Couldn't wait until the morning to eat. Had to get those fries. Well, they sure tasted good as I was running -- no, make that sprinting -- back from the canal, trying to catch that precious, oh so precious 41 bus.

Not only were the fries keeping me from turning on the jets all the way until I tossed them before eating even half, but this was in the final days of my green Chacos [my mommy has since mailed me a new pair :)]. If you've ever had a pair of shoes where the sole is literally 95% ripped in half, and you fear with every step that it could be your last in a functioning pair of footwear, than you can envision what it might have been like to have had to sprint for nearly ten minutes in a desperate attempt to make that last bus.

I missed it by two minutes. And I sat down on the bench, head bowed in defeat, plotting my next move with the clock approaching 1 in the morning.

And that's when I met Martin.

Just a few seconds after that, up came Daniella, who joined his five-o'clock-shadowed friend in poring over the bus stop time table, their faint hope of a miracle shuttle flickering like a candle in an oxygen-deprived air raid shelter.

"We missed the last one, don't bother," I said from my perch, trying to put them out of their misery.

"I don't understand," Martin retorted -- referring to my English, not the fact that he had been at least seven minutes too late.

"Termino. Finit. Kaput." I hoped a stew of foreign languages would convey the gist of our situation.

"Are you going to the youth hostel?" the stranger looking like a California beach kid asked in a yet-to-be-identified Mediterranean accent.

"Sí."

And so the three of us went into the train station, hoping to find some other means of getting back. But we were clutching at straws. There were only two options: Split a cab three ways, or walk the six kilometers back in the dark.

"I think we should walk," Daniella said.

And you know you can't chicken out once the first guy mans up.

I'm no stranger to long walks back to my bed in an unknown city with only nondescript bus routes as a guide in the pitch black -- my first night going out while studying abroad in Geneva, the same thing happened to my eventual best friend Coop and I. But no matter how many times you've done it, a four-letter word is always the first thing to come out of your mouth when the realization that a death march awaits hits you.

And a death march it was.

In those same Chacos -- the ones in worse condition than Ariel Sharon -- I began a long, grueling journey back to the hostel that I hadn't even sought out in the first place. None of us really even knew where we were going. English was the only option (nada español, pas de français); and their English wasn't too great. Just thirty minutes into what turned out to be a two-hour journey (we got back at 3 a.m.), my right leg mysteriously began to fall asleep, until the sensation of pins and needles throughout the appendage was so intense that I had to walk on the other side of the slanted road in an attempt to counteract the pain.

But we did establish some common ground.

"What are you doing in Holland?" they asked me, our names still a mystery to one another.

"I am going to a reggae festival, a reggae concert, in Eindhoven. Do you listen to reggae music?" I said as slowly and as phonetically as possible.

"Why yes, of course," the short one -- Martin -- said with an unspoken "Duh."

They knew all of the the bands that I was to see just two days later, but that wasn't what really cemented our bond. About twenty minutes after we took a break to chill and take a breather together, I started the conversation back up with a question.

"Do you know Gentleman?"

Both of them stopped dead in their tracks, they were so excited.

"He is our favorite!" the big one -- Daniella -- said with a grin. "We saw him at a festival in Italy two years ago. We no know him, and then, we hear, and we say, 'This, this is good!'"

After that, it suddenly seemed ridiculous to me that we still did not know one another's names.

"What's your name?" I stretched out my hand.

"Martin," the five-o'clock-shadow said with a smile and a firm grip. "Daniella," the pony tail said in the same fashion.

"Bayless. Nice to meet you."

And on we went, until we came to the bus stop that we would have reached about 100 minutes earlier had we all just been a little more punctual.

"YES!" We all did a little jig and slapped palms, a bolt of energy injected into our legs for the last ten minutes of the walk.

I never thought I'd be so happy to see a bunch of cows in my life. Our hostel's next-door neighbors were still awake -- and I swear I heard one of them say, "Missed the bus, huh?"


Martin and Daniella didn't have the cash to accompany me to the Sundance, unfortunately -- they were on the last legs of their journey, and if they had handed over 30€ each for the show, they wouldn't have been able to do what it was they had come to Holland to do in the first place.

But after that night -- and after my experiences with Andreas, Luisa, Mateo and Sara as well -- Italians are most definitely okay in my book. 

Utrecht.

 

I sat beside this canal in Utrecht for about three or four hours, completely content with myself. About ten or 15 of these party boats cruised by in that time.

And the whole time, I was doing nothing but kicking myself. If Chase, Hunter, Jamison, Robbie, Boo Boo and I had known you could rent party boats in Holland while we were just next door in Germany for three weeks during the World Cup, the definition of the word rowdy would have had to have been amended in Webster's to include a picture of the spectacle.

"Damn that would have been fun."

Girl boats were inevitably much more "OMG!" style. Case in point: Whereas the dudes above were only interested in going nuts so that I would take a picture of them for my own enjoyment, these girls went "nuts" so that I would take a picture for whatever the middle-aged, Dutch equivalent of a Facebook photo album is.

"Dutch Dutch Dutch Dutch Dutch Dutch Dutch??" they hurriedly asked me as their boat floated away.

"English?" I yelled, our separation increasing at about a meter every two seconds.

"Can you send that picture to us on email??"

Before waiting for a response -- there was no time for that -- they desperately screamed out something unintelligible, as if I would a) know how to spell a Dutch first and last name and b) take time out of my day to send them this measly little picture, when Lord knows they all already had about a billion shots of the day's festivities in their digital cameras.


Girls are the same, I don't care where you go.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A bike resting against the backdrop of a calm, quiet canal. If only one more thing were present, this photo would sum up perfectly my memory of The Netherlands, without any words necessary.

 

My Eurail Pass expired August 13. But the Reggae Sundance Festival in Eindhoven, NL was also August 13.

I had to get back to Morges, my home base, by train. That train ride was either going to be free, or it was going to be très, très cher.

The only things I had to factor into my decision were Israel Vibration, Don Carlos (formerly of Black Uhuru), Steel Pulse and Alpha Blondy.

Everyone not named Emmanuel only gets to live life once. What good is 100€ saved on a train ride gonna do me when I'm doomed to be ashes to ashes, dust to dust? I had the opportunity of a lifetime laying out there for me to grab hold of: The chance to see four LEGENDARY BANDS on the same day, in the same place.

So even though every fiscally responsible bone in my body told me I should just go straight back to Switzerland, something else told me it was a mooooooooot point.


I was going to that festival, regardless of the financial repercussions involved.

The Sundance was a three-day affair. My body was only trying to do one of those days -- the memory of the agonizingly slow muscle-and-joint recuperation in Cologne following the 72 hours of punishment at SummerJam was visceral, to say the least. And besides, all I needed to see, I could see on Sunday.

Four legends, one spot, 30€ (and 10€ for a campsite). Sold.

But before I was to put the cap on my Summer Reggae Festival Trilogy, I had a couple of days to kill en Les Pays Bas.

And so off I went to Utrecht, where I had heard glorious tales from my friend John -- the kid on the train from Oslo to Bergen who would "Rather Go to Hell than Texas" -- of a 16€/night hostel with free Internet and free food.

I arrived, found a city map, meandered along the streets until I found the only hostel listed on the aforementioned map ... and was turned away for a lack of vacancy. The only place available was 15 minutes outside of the city by bus. It was 9€ more than my dream spot. Breakfast was free, but it was crap. And the Internet cost 5€/hr., which is kind of like charging people to go to the bathroom, as they do in every single European train station (we have a word for that in America: "Extortion").

But it was my only option. And so I got on that 41 bus and went.

But I did make a new friend: The Dutch cow who agreed that it was stupid to weigh Izzy Vibe, Don Carlos, Steel Pulse and Alpha Blondy against some short term financial consideration by saying "Mooooot" over and over. His existence across the street from my hostel was proof that yes, I was staying in the boonies.


But it didn't stop me from heading straight back into town on the 41 bus to walk around the canals at night. If you've never been to Holland, I promise you, you are missing out. I cannot believe that for all the times I have been there, I have never taken a boat ride along these things.

Some day, I suppose. Some day.


 

It's only fitting that I close my chapter on Norway by writing about the man who truly made it all possible, James.


The way I see it, James owed me one, plus interest. As a high school junior back in December 2000, I worked as a day laborer on a Humphries Construction job site out in BFE, Texas. The job? Erecting a huge Stolt-Nielsen building -- the same Norwegian shipping line that James worked for when he and his family lived in Houston. (By "erecting," I mean "cleaning up after the people actually doing the real construction").

Once this fact was established -- about an hour after James picked me up at the Oslo station -- all shame about being a mooch was thrown to the wind.

"Man, I cleaned up trash on that site for two weeks, AND I did a lot of sweeping and wheel-barrowing. This guy owes me one, big time."

Say, two nights at your crib in Oslo and a week at your summer home on the west coast?

Throw in some free ferry rides, three meals a day and a new toothbrush, and we're even ... oh, and can I have a ride back to Oslo in the Houston-mobile?

Thanks, man.

Next to Murray Brasseux, I don't know if I've met a bigger history buff than James. This, too, we established early on.

"So, do you know much about Norway's role in WW2?" I asked right after we talked about Stolt-Nielsen. "I'm always fascinated to hear about the specifics of Nazi occupation in all these countries, and I've got to admit, we don't learn too much about Norway in school -- no offense."

He smiled and gave me a quick look.

"That time period is actually my specialty. You're in luck."

Right he was.

James and I had a lot of time to talk that week -- there ain't much else to do other than read, eat and fish when you're out there. I heard his take on Castro, the Japanese and German reactions to post-war reconstruction, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Soviet de-occupation of Norway following the war, etc. etc. etc. Seriously, I couldn't list all the topics of history which we discussed -- or topics which I asked about, and then listened to his response, at least.

(Did you know that Hitler pioneered the idea of sending common folks on cruises as a lesiure activity?)


The capper came on the last day and night of my time mooching off the Lorentzens. During the seven-hour drive back from Bergen, it was effectively just us two in the Suburban together, as Didrik was getting caught up on some much needed sleep that he had opted out on the night before.

There wasn't a pause in conversation longer than a minute long nearly the entire way -- and something tells me the same would have held true had we been driving from Bergen to Berlin.

When we stopped at a video store to rent some movies back in Oslo, I saw a documentary on Stalingrad.

"Didrik," I asked, "will there be English subtitles in this?"

"Definitely."

So I bought it.

And guess what? There weren't English subtitles.

Thanks, Didrik.

But it turned out fine, because instead, James and I finished off my trip by watching a movie about German U-Boats during WW2. And as a parting gift, I gave James my DVD.


After all, I owed him one this time around.


He did take this picture and all. I guess you could say we're even.

It may be as cold as the Astros' offense, but Norway is an absolutely beautiful country.

The mountains, the fjords, the waterfalls, the incredible diversity in landscape ... if there's anyone on earth besides George Bush and Joe American who is less concerned about the long-term effects of global warming, it's the head of Norway's tourism industry, which is primed for a BIG windfall about fifty years down the road. In terms of panoramic grandeur, I'd go so far as to place this oil-rich nation of just over four million -- not 50 million, as Josefine guessed when I asked a group of Danes over coffee in Copenhagen -- in a dead heat with Switzerland, which I'm not sure could ever be beat outright.

(Could it work out any better for me? There are families in both countries -- who happen to be very good friends with one another, yet are independently friends of ours through Houstonian roots -- that are willing to take me in for days on end without complaining [too much] that I snore.)

But for all its natural beauty, Norway is probably the last place on earth you'd want to live if your name was Nemo.


It's too bad for Mitchell & Ness that there are only about five black people in all of Scandinavia (Somalis do not count, because Muslim culture is just a tad different than hip-hop-ya-don't-stop). If there were just a handful more, and a throwback industry was able to gain traction among the youths, the 1983 Carlton Fisk jersey would rake in kroners.

The reason for that is simple: "Fisk" means "fish" in Norwegian. And until they discovered the immense offshore oil deposits that have made pensions here the envy of each and every GM employee rubbing his lucky Lotto ticket, I'm pretty sure Norwegians bought and sold goods using actual fish as hard currency.


The Chinese have rice. The Germans have liquid bread. The Mexicans have tortillas. The Americans have Big Macs. And according to James, the North Vietnamese have turtles and porcupines. But the Norwegians, they have fisk.

And as a special treat, this is one of the few countries in the world with a bountiful enough supply of whales in its waters that they're allowed to hunt them. The occasional sea mammal snack is a nice diversion from the monotony of fish soup, fish fillets and fish sandwiches.


Looks like liver, tastes like deer.

While in Bergen, James took us to the Hanseatic League museum -- an experience which will surely benefit me if I ever make it onto Jeopardy! and there's a category on the northern European medieval fishing industry. With the Bergen fisk trade effectively controlled by German merchants as far back as 1360, I get the feeling that Norwegian hostility towards Germans can be traced back just a little farther than the whole "getting invaded during WW2" thing.


But you get the sense, from talking to James, that places like this -- the outdoor fish market in Bergen -- may be in decline. Increasingly enforced health standards mean that much of the fresh fish which used to be sold here on a daily basis, from time immemorial, have been replaced by cheesy Norway t-shirts and stuffed animals.

And with the rise of kebab shops on every street corner, not to mention the fact that frozen pizza has just recently become the most-consumed food in Norway, Carlton Fisk may be in the twilight of its career. But just like Pudge, who played for over 20 years, it sure had a long run. 

I wondered what Christiana was plotting during the afternoon...


...Until I realized, she and her cousins, Michelina and Atilla, must be planning on teaching me a bunch of dirty Norwegian phrases under the guise of helping me ingratiate myself with the family.


Let me just give you the following list of the sentences I asked how to say in Norwegian, followed by the Norwegian itself, and capped off by what I had actually been taught.

"I am in Bergen."

Jeg ma baesje veldig i Bergen.

I must poop hard in Bergen.


"Where are you?"

Har du diaré?

Do you have diarrhea?


"This mosquito is killing me."

Myggene suger all dritten ut av meg.

The mosquitoes are sucking the s**t out of me.


"You are nice."

Jeg ar sar i raeva.

My butt is sore.


And, my personal favorite, the only one I can still remember how to say in Norwegian at this point because of how incredibly uncouth it is:

"Let's go fishing."

Jeg har voondt i tissen.

My penis hurts.

I knew these teenage girls were up to something. I mean, my accent clearly wasn't good, but it couldn't have been THAT funny to hear me try to say various pleasantries in their language. And if it takes thirty seconds for someone to "think" of how to say "Where are you?", that means they're "thinking" of how to say "Do you have diarrhea?"

But at least they didn't record me saying all of this stuff before teaching me the real things.


No wait, they did.

Don't even give me that smile. It's not working with me. Du er NOT snill.

Miriam just looks like a painfully nice person.


And she is.

About as nice as a person could be before offering to give you one of their kidneys. This kid sister of Sissi (I have recently been informed that Sissi's name has no 'y' in it) grew up, married a Dutchman, eventually moved to the south of Spain and became what has to be the first flamenco instructor in the history of Scandinavia.

Flamenco? Norway? Is anyone else staring into the Crawford Boxes to look out for anything else that may come out of left field?

And to think that Miriam has been coming to this island her entire life -- she grew up in Moss, near Oslo, but this was her father's birthplace and childhood home.


One word to describe this swimming hole James, Sissi, Lambiek and Miriam brought me to: REFRESHING.

And another word, this one to describe Sissi and Miriam's father's old-school boat: PIMP.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the distance is the boat house I took so many siestas in, read so much of my book, Berlin: The Downfall, 1945 in on those lazy Norwegian days, and ate so many amazing meals in.

But the rock that today serves as a glorified hot dog grill? The future site of Miriam and Lambiek's own summer home ... as well as the site of a place for the Kleppe brother, JanPeder.


Basically, I wish I never had to leave this place.

But that's not just because of how alive the water was, or the baaaaaahh'ing sheep, or the incredibly nice and welcoming people.

It was the food, too.

A rule of thumb: It's never a bad thing to fall in with an aspiring nutritionist who is NOT a vegetarian.


Why?

Because you get to eat nothing but dank meals; dank meals that are actually good, too. Not to say that all vegetarian meals are bad, but it's definitely the difference between Triple-A and The Show. This coming from the guy who would be 18 years away from being a real life 40-Year-Old Virgin had he never dated a vegetarian.

Sissi, who recently went back to university to get her master's in nutrition, has combined her maternal nagging skills with her newfound knowledge base to perpetually irritate the two kids who I got to meet, Didrik and Christiana.

"Do you get annoyed with your mom constantly telling you what is okay to eat and what is bad for you?"

"YES."

One day, they'll be glad they had some guidance -- until I met Sissi, I honestly ate fruit with the idea that I could ascribe one "fruit point" to every apple, banana, peach, etc. that I consumed. And the more fruit points I amassed, the healthier I would be. All fruits carried the same amount of points per kg. Seemed to be a pretty good system, until Sissi sent it crashing down.

"You can't eat an APPLE right before a meal!!" she exclaimed in shock when she caught me, red-handed, in the kitchen right before dinner one night. "How are the nutrients going to be properly dispersed into your system? You are only supposed to eat fruit x hours before a meal, or x hours afterward."

Gosh, Bayless. No doiiiiiiiiiiii.

(Sissi, for Christmas, can you please send me a nutritional day-by-day plan of what I should be eating? Thanks, I miss you.) 

I know I left Norway a long time ago -- I'd say it's been about 10 days now -- but I can't forget to write about little Odin and his crazy Dutchman dad, Lambiek.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"¿Hablas español?"

It was just a joke -- clearly, this little blond Norwegian kid who was speaking Martian to me as he nestled into my lap in front of the computer wasn't going to speak Spanish. It was my own little way of saying "There's no way we're gonna be able to communicate, buddy, but I may as well toss up a Hail Mary that you aren't going to catch."

But guess what? He pulled it in for the TD.


"¡Claro!" Odin's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. He had found someone who "spoke his language," and so out came the Spanish like a rapid-fire submachine gun.

I could not believe what I had just heard ... nor could I really understand it all; partly because the kid has the thickest south of Spain accent you can have, and partly because my español comes out more like a one-at-a-time-and-I-hope-it-doesn't-rain-on-my-gunpowder Spanish conquístador musket.

"¿Por qué tú sabes este idioma?" I asked in bewilderment.

That's easy. Odin is from Spain.


And that's in large part due to his father, Lambiek -- who, judging by the male capri pants he's rocking, has given whole new meaning to the phrase "wearing the pants in the family."

Lambiek is from Bergen. But not that Bergen. The Dutch one. Miriam, his wife, is the Norwegian connection. She is Sissi's little sister. Lambiek, Miriam, Atilla, Michelina and Odin used to live in the south of France, in a marbled-out behemoth of a house, living the high life, until Lambiek had a life-changing epiphany that this was not the way he wanted to raise his children. So he quit his job. Sold his possessions. Sold it all. Picked up the family and moved 'em from a house on a hill to a house on a street with muchos vecinos. Far from the pomp and circumstance of their former elite neighbors, Lambiek and his family now reside in Gerez, a town right next to Cadiz.

And you couldn't meet a man happier with his life than Lambiek.

"Let me tell you something," he said to me in the computer room my second night on the island, volunteering some of his own personal words of wisdom for a 22-year-old kid, full of confusion and obviously at a crossroads in his life. "I used to think, 'Oh, I get a lot of money, I get a big house, nice things, expensive wine, all these things,' and I will be happy. And I got all of these things. I had everything. And you know what? I wasn't happy. I was not happy. So I sold everything, moved my family to Spain, where the people are more real, and decided that this was how I wanted to raise my children. You said earlier that many of your friends like to joke that all they want to do when they get older is 'make a lot of money.' Well, here is what I know: If you can't be happy right now, in this moment -- if you're waiting for something that is going to make you happy -- then you will never be happy my friend."


He disdains the business world, which is ironic, because it was the money he made in his previous life through his business world savvy that has allowed him to adopt such a Bohemian attitude in his new one.

"I don't know what this word 'efficiency' means," Lambiek told me early in the week as we were putting up the fishing nets, cleaning them of the ew-and-goo that loves to stick to the wet pieces of nylon that remain in the water all night. "Everything has to be 'efficient.' Why? Tell me that. Why? We need a faster boat or a faster car, so that we can get home earlier and have an extra thirty minutes to watch television. Me? I'll take my little sail boat, thankyou very much. I'd rather go and fix a fence or something than go and work in this business world.

"All of this technology, all of this knowledge," he continued. "What good does it do unless you are learning the right things? Unless you know how to use this knowledge? My kids, they speak a lot of languages [Dutch, Spanish, English and Norwegian]. But I don't care so much what they speak as I care what they speak about. That is what I am focused on with my kids."

It goes without saying that his thoughts on the war in Lebanon were anything but realpolitik.


Little Odin, however -- quite possibly my closest companion throughout the entire week -- seems to be too focused on how AMAZING every little thing around him on the earth seems to be to realize the unique vantage point his father maintains. When they speak about "seeing things through a child's eyes," they're talking about Odin's take on life.

A FISH!!!! ... A CRAB!!!!! THAT CRAB IS ALIVE!!!! IT'S ALIVE!!!!! OH MY GOD THAT CRAB IS ALIVE!!!!! .... LET'S GO KILL A SHEEP!!!!!! A BIG ONE!!!!!!! ... WE HAVE A CAR!!!!! IT'S FAST!!!!! A FAST ONE!!!!!!

His eyes seem to add at least two exclamation points to every sentence he says, while his high-octane Spanish adds another two. Little Odin most likely forgot all about his friend Bahíamenos (TU NOMBRE ES BAHÍAMENOS!!! BAHÍAMENOS!!! HAHAHAHAH! BAHÍAMENOS!!!!) the second I walked out the door. But I haven't forgotten about him. And I haven't forgotten the words of wisdom uttered by his father.

This is an old picture that I just happened to come across while browsing through random photos this afternoon.

It has absolutely nothing to do with my trip -- or with travel in general -- but I thought I'd put it up just to keep the flame burning between my sister, Eli, and my assistant captain from my lacrosse team at Strake (and also the mere "Defensive MVP" to my "State Championship MVP" from our Final Four victory in 2002), Miguel.

This plays perfectly into my "All Brothers Should Sell Their Sisters Off To Their Best Friends So You Can 'Go Golfing One Weekend As Friends, And Another As Family!'" theory.


Miguel is taken, and has been taken, for a looooong time now. And I really like his girlfriend. But I just have three words in regards to his admittance to the Parsley Patch: You Never Know.

(Haley, this is only if something goes down between you guys, don't worry). 

C'est fou, mon Dieu.

My mother believes in angels. Al Michaels believes in miracles. Hunter Flint simply believes that Jah, or whoever He is, works in mysterious ways.

My philosophy isn't that much different. I just believe in signs, sent to us by something larger than ourselves. Et mon Dieu m’a envoyé un signe ce matin.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

My stomach wasn't happy. It was early, real early. Like six, seven in the morning I think -- my brain was too disoriented to truly take note. As I listened to and felt the growls rumbling from within, I already knew: A lot of veal and boiled rice was about to end up in Chez Knapp's upstairs toilet.

What a helpless feeling. Nothing can save you once you reach that point. I was a dead man walking.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I tried in vain to sleep it off. But you can't pull one over on your own body like that. If it wants to hurl, it's gonna hurl.

As soon as that feeling of warm saliva began to massage my jaw bones, I knew it was time to move. "Eight a.m.," I remember registering from the midst of the early morning haze. "Should be a wonderful day."

My semi-sleepwalk from the bed to the toilet was brisque. The fuse had been lit, and there was no telling how much time I had before it blew.

"Here we go again..." I had made it to the big hunk of porcelain and plastic with plenty of time to position myself comfortably in front of it, the feeling of the cold tile floor on my knees somewhat thinning the fog in my brain.

T-Minus five, four, three, two, one...

And I mean lift off.

Ask any of my former roomates about the "loud throw-upper." They'll cringe. They will most definitely cringe.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

You remember Bibi, don't you? The Catholic matriarch of my European surrogate family, which in turn makes her either my surrogate Euro mother, or my surrogate Euro godmother. I can't decide which one just yet.

Bibi is fully aware of my story: Seven years of Catholic schooling in lower school followed by four years of Jesuit education for high school, which in turn has been followed by four-plus years of detachment from the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

The first time I ever met the Knapps -- in August 2004 -- was on a Sunday. I was hooping it up with Letitia and Toots -- the two Knapp girls -- when Bibi drove up in her minivan to pick them up. She asked me if I would like to go to Mass with them. I politely declined, something I wouldn't have dared to do had Breck -- the non-Catholic patriarch of Chez Knapp -- not held out himself. Power in numbers, after all, is a very comforting thing.

I meant no disrespect, but I was always afraid it was taken as such.

The battle to bring me back into the Vatican fold has been going on ever since. In other words, I get the feeling that in Bibi's eyes, I am a prime candidate for a Return of the Prodigal Son.

That was in August 2004, before I became eternally indebted to this family for the truckloads of hopsitality it has bestowed upon me.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's why, last night, I made a decision.

"I really should go to Mass tomorrow with Bibi and the kids," I conceded. It was the least I could do. "It would be a nice gesture -- I owe her one, after all."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eight hours later, I'm down on my knees in front of the toilet, feeling like absolute caca.

The search for an explanation was an exercise in futility. I didn't eat anything different from the rest of the family. I didn't drink out of a river like Hunter decided was perfectly fine when he and Chase went to Freiburg. I didn't booze. I didn't do anything out of the ordinary. All I did was go to bed, and when I woke up, my stomach was letting me know that Mass was not in the cards on this particular Sunday.

"Are you ready to get up?" Letitia -- the Knapp's oldest daughter -- asked when she came into my room to wake me at nine.

I groaned.

"I feel terrible. I'm not going. Tell your mom my vomit was a sign from God that He didn't want me to go to Mass today."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I did my best to sleep off the agony, but did a shoddy job of it. I was either being punished for eating a poor, defensless baby cow the night before, or I was being warned that, after such a long sojourn from the Sunday pews, I was unworthy for admittance into God's house.

In other words, the Lord agreed that I was not worthy to receive Him, rather than saying the word. It's 5:30 in the afternoon, after all, and I still have not been healed.

(Only Catholics will understand that last paragraph).

I meandered downstairs around midday, hungry, groggy and unenthused about being alive. A few minutes later, Bibi entered.

"How do you feel?" she inquired, still unaware of my original plans to end my hold-out that very morning.

"Awful. I had even planned on going with you guys, today. But I guess me throwing up was just a sign from God that He didn't want me to attend."

I don't know if "skeptical" is explicit enough to describe the look Bibi shot back my way. The way she stared at me -- with no words coming forth from her lips -- told me that Letitia, Toots and Tomas would have had a better chance of convincing her that Spot had eaten their homework than the crappola I was serving up.

"See, Bibi?? It's just like you always say! GOD is in control!"

She wasn't moved.

"Well," Bibi said, a smirk beginning to develop. "That's fine. There are many more Masses today."

I smiled, busted like my last name was Douglas, waiting for the punch line that I could see about to come forth.

"So in fact, I am in control! Hahahaha!"

The struggle continues.

My mom loves me.

http://www.examinernews.com/articles/2006/08/16/columns/to_wit/wit01.txt

FYI, Germany never played France. I did make the comment to some Germans about being wary of getting too confident, because "after all, we all know what happens when Germany gets really nationalistic," but this just goes to show that Mr. Springmeyer is right ... and then some. Not only does my mom not know s**t about baseball, she doesn't know anything about sports in general.

That being said, she was right about Brad Lidge. And she is giving me a lot of pub. So Mom, I still love you. Even if your teeth are falling out.

"I think I'm just going to go to Berkshire and try to Europeanize them."

That's the gameplan Didrik -- James and Sissy's youngest son -- is taking with him to Massachusetts this fall, where he will be spending the next year of his life at boarding school.

Good luck, buddy.


As you can see, Didrik is about as Euro as they come. The hair, the headband, the bike, the hood when it's not cold, the total package. He is fashionable. He listens to house, techno, trance. He loves to go to clubs and dance until the sun comes up. He is from Europe.

I had a feeling that I had met him before when I first shook his hand. He looked like someone I knew, someone I hadn't seen for a few years ...



He looked like Sunshine Bass from Remember The Titans. I realized it about four days into the trip. Maybe not as filled out, but certainly has the core elements. (If you saw Didrik's hair, you'd understand). This of course turned out to be an amazing connection, because of a story Didrik told me about his recent trip to Greece.

"My friends and I were walking down the street, and these Greek guys, they all started yelling at us. They were saying we're gay, or something," he told me, clearly confused as to how someone like himself could ever be labelled in such a way. "So we just walked up to their table and said, 'In your dreams,' and walked away. It was great."

Do you remember the scene when Sunshine was called gay? And he went up to the guy and just planted one on him? Kind of close? No?

Well, I was truly amazed at how long Didrik was able to sleep on the car ride back from Bergen to Oslo. About six out of the seven hours, he layed there, in the back of the Houston-mobile.

I wonder if he was dreaming about Sunshine. 

"Ah, we're out of food," James said, the sudden realization entering his head around five in the afternoon, dinner time rapidly approaching. "Well, let's just go catch some fish."

Let's just go catch some fish? Simple as that? This guy must be crazy, I thought.

"It's that easy?" I asked, knowing full well that you don't just catch fish whenever you feel like catching fish.

James began to smirk -- I was obviously the new kid in town.

"In Norway," he explained, "going to the store for food is a sign of shame.".

In Texas, I explained in turn, it's a sign of hunger.

Where I come from, "Do you wanna go fishing?" means "Do you want to go cast into the water, sit there for four hours hoping we get a bite, all the while not talking for fear of scaring the fish away?"

In Norway, "Do you wanna go fishing?" means "Do you wanna go out on the boat for ten minutes, cast your pole five times and reel a fish back in four of those times?"

No wonder I hated fishing as a kid. I didn't realize you were actually supposed to catch something every single time you went.

Rather than avoiding your hook like The Plague -- as the fish in Texas lakes and rivers like to do -- the little guys under Norwegian waters race for that hook like a brigade of sperm going after that egg. It is truly a thing of beauty to watch as every single person on the boat just keeps reeling 'em in. For Christiana -- James and Sissy's daughter -- and her cousin Atilla, this is how fishing has always been.

You can even catch crabs without a problem if you've got snorkel gear, like Miriam -- Atilla's mother and Sissy's flamenco instructor little sister.

No wonder Miriam's youngest daughter, Michelina, is all smiles. Not only do you catch fish, but you can also talk while doing it. We Texans could learn a thing of two from the Norwegians.
 

I am devoting four pictures to this little kid, James and Sissy's nephew, because he was that cute.

How do you spell his name? No clue. Fifty percent of National Spelling Bee Champions wouldn't, either. So we're gonna go phonetically: O-LEE-AH-CUB. Oleacob is how we'll spell it, which is guarnteed to be wrong.


His older brother, Mathias, just looks like he's up to something.


Sure, the kid appears to be all sweet and innocent. But he's way smarter than most children his age (3, I think?). Every single time he saw me, I received the same greeting: "Hallo doo-mmay!" (Again,we're going phonetically with the Norwegian). Translation? Pretty obvious. "Hello dummy!"
 

Sheep: Norwegian for "lawnmower."

Who needs to throw down a few hundred bucks at Home Depot when you can just buy some sheep to do the job for you? They really do keep the place looking sharp -- the yard is the Augusta National of Bergen island homes. If I was running the place, I would definitely want sheep as well....but not for aesthetic purposes so much as another reason.

From the second I layed eyes on the herd of 40, maybe 50, I felt an uncontrollable urge start to brew in my gut. Similar to that feeling you get when you just have to move your legs on a crowded airplane. It was an urge to just .... ahhh, I just wanted to RUN AROUND those things and scare the living bejeezus out of them. I LOVE doing stuff like that to stupid animals -- and sheep are pretty stupid. I don't know why it's so irresistable! It's probably Top Five Funniest Things in the World to me. To see how scared they get, and then to hear their impassioned pleas of "Baaaaahhhh! Baaaaaaahhhhhh!" like it's going to save them ... how can you NOT laugh at that? Even the board of PETA, or Les Alexander's wife even, would crack a smile. I know those baaaaahhhh's make me start giggling uncontrollably, and I bet they do the same to you.

But the problem with acting like a five-year-old child is that I'm actually 22. Running around trying to scare a field full of sheep while giggling like a school girl is not very tactful, especially if you're trying to make a good impression. But by the second-to-last day, the urge had crossed the Tipping Point.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was out by the fence, walking back from the boat house, when I saw what was milling around in front of me: A mass of sheep, mowing away.

"It's now or never," I said, looking around to scope the scene, trying to look casual.

All clear. Time to make my move.

I'll translate for you what the sheep were saying as I began to stalk them as stealthily as possible.

"Yo, guys, that dude is coming dangerously close to us."
"Ah, shut up, Bubba. You always cry wolf like that. He's probably just gonna go swimming or something."

"Naw, man. I'm serious. He's got a really weird look in his eyes."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Guys, he's getting closer."
"I think Bubba may be right, you guys. I'm starting to get a little sketched."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"HOLY SHIT! RUN, FORREST! RUN FOR IT!"
"OH MY GOD! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE, BUBBA! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE! BAAAAAAHHHH! BAAAHHHHH! BAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"YOU IDIOT, FORREST! DON'T YOU KNOW WHAT THEY ALWAYS SAY! DON'T YELL 'BAAAHHH' WHEN YOU'RE IN DANGER! YELL 'FIRE' IF YOU WANT SOMEONE TO SAVE US! FIRE! FIRE!"

Hahahahahaha. I could play this game until the sheep come home. 

NORWAY.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Lorentzen family & Co.,

Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your island home off the west coast of Bergen is phat. That means "good." All I want to do is go back there and spend another week of doing absolutely nothing but sleeping, eating, reading Berlin, fishing and speaking Spanish with little Odin. Not to mention that I am having withdrawal symptoms from having to quit my afternoon siesta habit, cold turkey.

And oh, how I miss those bugs. You can't call them "mosquitoes," really -- they're much too small for that. But I hesitate to use the word "flea," as well -- the herds of those insects were way too far away from the other animals to go under that heading. I prefer the phrase, "Bugs that make you want to jump off a cliff without a parachute." I lasted about two minutes reading in the grass below before I just couldn't take it anymore. And that last night I was there, when we had to unscrew the engine from the boat ... at times I thought I was reliving the Exodus plague sequence. I've heard of people inhaling bugs through their nose, or even yawning and allowing entry through the mouth, but I have never, ever heard of someone blinking and getting one caught in their eye! There's a first time for everything, I guess.


But all jokes aside, you really made me feel at home. It wasn't just your hospitality, or all the fresh meals, or the free ferry rides, or the new toothbrush James bought for me when we got stuck in town without our bags that first night.

It was your Suburban, too -- the "Houston-mobile," as you called it. It makes my heart warm to know that a part of my culture has stayed with you for all those years since you left H-Town.


All is well here in Switzerland. Your friends, the Knapps, say hello. And FYI, the water is actually colder in Lake Geneva than the "warm" 17 degrees Celsius stuff you had during that beautiful week in Bergen (I can't remember the name of your island....which actually means that I never knew the name of your island).


P.S. Did you know Oslo is Spanish for "Do it" or "Make it"? 

You know there must be a breathtaking view outside if I snap a photo from a train car, but that's what I did on the way from Oslo to Bergen. I could do a 7-hour commute every day if I had the mountains, fjords and fresh water springs of Norway to gaze at the entire time.


My friend in the foreground, John ... I think we need to open up a can on him. The man had the balls to wear a shirt with the Texas state cut-out on it, along with the words, "I'd Rather Go to Hell Than Texas."

Ouch.

Of course, it took me until a few hours into the ride to notice the words. All I saw was the shape of my state on a t-shirt in Norway, and you can guess how long it took me to introduce myself. John is lucky I didn't wise up until after we had become buddes ... those are fightin' words where I come from.

"It's a joke. I like Texas," he claims. "I used to live in Dallas."

Typical Dallas. 

Comment dit-on "awkward" en francais?

Why did they have to bring me into the conversation? I was just minding my own business.

The woman who runs this household, Bibi, is Catholic. Very Catholic. Her 14-year-old daughter, Alexandra, a.k.a. "Toots," is a rebellious 14-year-old -- like every girl her age, from Morges to Timbuctu. That is all the background you need.

At dinner tonight, Bibi started to talk about some new issue involving kids Toots' age, something having to do with pornographic pictures on their computers, or on their phones, or something electronic -- I really can't remember. Of course, whenever you're at the dinner table and stuff like that comes up -- unless you're around all people your own age -- you are just praying that the issue is dropped, and dropped immediately, before you are asked to pitch in your two cents.

"You don't have any pictures like that, do you Toots?"

She muttered something back in French, obviously annoyed to the nth degree that her mom could be so out of the loop with today's teens. All I caught was tout le monde, and then something else to indicate that it's totally, like, not a big deal, or whatever.

Bibi disagreed.

Remember the Catholicism.

I could already feel it coming. That question was about to be directed at me, with an expected "no" serving as the backup for Bibi's moral point.

As any kid would do, whether guilty or not, Toots vehemently rejected the idea. "No, of course not!" Now it was my turn to reject such a notion. Bibi turned to me. I braced myself so that my uncomfortable state wouldn't give my position away too easily.

"And you, Bayless? Have you ever downloaded sex pictures off the Internet?"

My mind raced like Floyd Landis on synthetic testosterone. Could I say "no" based on semantics? ("'Pictures?? Why no, of course I don't download pictures.' Phew, that was close.") No, those 56k days from around the turn of the millenium would do me in. Something else would have to do. Clock is ticking, Bayless, it's ticking. She's looking at you, Bayless. Say something. Your silence only makes you appear more guilty! Think of something!

(An awww shucks grin) "I am Catholic. I don't do stuff like that," I said, knowing the Eddie Haskell approach was doomed to failure -- after all, I have declined opportunities to go to Sunday Mass with Bibi and the kids on more than one occasion in the past.

"Oh, you're Catholic all of the sudden, are you?" Bibi smelled a rat.

"Yes."

"Today is the Assumption. Have you been to Mass already?"

Of all the days to use the "I'm Catholic, I'm above that" line for denying a sin, I pick a holy day of obligation. And of course, it was (yet another) holy day of obligation that I didn't feel too obliged to attend.

I had not been to Mass; in fact, I didn't know I had been supposed to go to Mass today. I told Bibi the truth about that one.

She pondered the breakdown of morality seemingly going on all around her, in her own home, before speaking again.

"You know, I think we should all go to church right now," Bibi said to the table, thereby proposing the unheard of "going to Mass" / "going for ice cream after dinner" switcheroo.

"Nooooooon, mama!" came an impassioned plea from the youngest, Tomas, a.k.a. "Toto." He wasn't about to let my penance get in the way of his two scoops of ice cream.

"No church!" Toots exclaimed in unison with her little brother.

I just sat there -- I had already said too much with my blatant "I'm Catholic" line, which could be translated into "Guilty as charged." But the Knapp children, they all screamed for ice cream, despite their mother's warnings that an emergency Communion wafer was in order to restore their God-given grace. Breck, far from a member of the conservative religious right, was the tie-breaker -- and he knew it.

Without turning his head from the task of rinsing his plate off in the sink, Breck spoke.

"Let's go get ice cream."

And just like that, I was off the hook. But Bibi knows I'm full of it now. Which is just perfect.

Ya know, this Swiss lilly pad, this home base in Morges, Chez Knapp -- it's got the whole package. Free internet, television, a view of the Alps with Lake Geneva in the foreground, a great dog, great family, great everything.

And it's got one more thing: The most annoying anti-virus software e-ver. It doesn't allow me to update my blog, at least not with any pictures. And really, who wants to read my stuff THAT badly? We all know that, in this day and age, when everyone and their freaking mother gets medicated for A.D.D., everything is a battle for attention spans. We are all victims of the sensory overload revolution...this blog is no different from the rest of the protagonists in that revolution.

Tomorrow, before I leave for a weekend trip to visit Breck's relatives in Grenoble, FR, I'm taking a bike, I'm taking my laptop, and I am finding free wireless internet somewhere in town. Then, finally, I can let you know some things about Norway and Norwegians. And crazy Dutchmen.

A bientôt.

Chez sweet chez. I am now back with my European surrogate family, the Knapps.
Morges, Switzerland.
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"So, where are you headed next?"

"Uhhh.... I dunno," I always say with a deliberate pause, meant to convey the impression that I am actually searching for an answer that doesn't really come until game time. "Probably go back to Switzerland. I have some friends there."

That is how I answer THE question posed to me, with a canned response designed to taste freshly-baked.

I've been serving up that response for about five weeks now, ever since the last time I hopped off the Morges lilly pad, back on July 5, en route to Pamplona. As I was running out the door, I told Letitia, the eldest of the three Knapp children, to expect me back "in about a week, maybe two."

Then, after SummerJam.

"Where are you off to now?"

"Uhhh.... I dunno. Probably go back to Switzerland. I have some friends there."

And after Den Haag.

"Uhhh.... I dunno. Probably go back to Switzerland. I have some friends there."

After Berlin.

"Uhhh.... I dunno. Probably go back to Switzerland. I have some friends there."

(Once I got up to Denmark, I held no illusions about an immediate retreat from Scandinavia, considering how long it takes to get there).

But then again, after the Reggae Sundance Festival in Eindhoven, NL.

"Uhhh.... I dunno. Probably go back to Switzerland. I have some friends there."

Only this time, I meant it.

There's something refreshing about having a home base when you travel as much as I have these past nine weeks. In a world that is constantly moving, shaking and turning itself upside down, having that main lilly pad to keep your feet from getting all wet is a godsend. A place to relax without having to buy something, a place to get a good, homemade meal, a place to do laundry, a place to feel ... like you're at home.

The bastion of stability that you subconsciously crave amidst a world if instability is what that lilly pad -- firmly rooted to the ocean floor below -- represents.

Unlike the person you're chatting with on the train from Berlin to Copenhagen, or the kids you meet at the bus stop in Utrecht two minutes after the last one back to your hostel has departed, or the person dancing next to you at Steel Pulse, the home base is a constant. It's not going anywhere.

And neither am I...for a good while. I am here in Switzerland stay for a bit.

Look at this little guy! He has two completely different faces depending on which way you're looking at him.

Standing straight up in the kitchen, you see
a five-year-old little boy who is obsessed with the movie Top Gun. He watches it at least five times a week on Beta tapes. And ALL the kid wants is a Maverick bomber jacket, but like the race car bed and any video game system ever created, his mean parents never got it for him.

Wait a minute, that describes me.

So naturally, if you dip your head 45 degrees to the left, you see

the look of shock on grown up Bayless' face that the Loser Protestant (the family pariah Louise Parley's initials) would be so cruel to such a cute little Catholic boy. 

This is the last thing I'm writing about Denmark before I move onto what's been going on in my world for the last 13 days: Norway and now back in Holland, ready to go see Alpha Blondy, Steel Pulse and Israel Vibration all play in the same day in the same place: the Reggae Sundance Festival in Eindhoven, NL (I skipped the first two days, because I don't really even want to see Sizzla or Anthony B, because I am not in the mood for the bobo dread BS -- like four of you understood that, tops).

And then, I will finally get back to the home base in Morges, CH, about four weeks after telling the Knapps I'd be back "in about a week, maybe two."
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"Cool! You can, like, pee in the shower and not have to lie about it!!"

We can learn something from the showers in old, small apartments in the heart of Copenhagen: There's a reason fat people don't exist in Europe. You just can't afford to be if you want to be able to bathe in some of these places.

That's a shower head spurting a torrent of hot water into the bathroom sink at the apartment Josefine was house-sitting.


Next to the sink is the toilet, along with the washing machine. In a way, it's a very American idea, except for the whole "not big" thing. Talk about efficiency. Finally, I can pee in the shower without having to claim that I never, ever do that!

(Unfortunately, because of the extension cord that is needed to plug the washing machine in rests directly in the sink, you can't do three things at once).


It's extremely disorienting.


For example, where are you supposed to put the shower head when you want to lather? Pretty much nothing works. Bury it down into the drain, and the force of the water rebounding immediately knocks it onto its side and water is going all over the wall. Try laying it upside down, and even if you can find it a little niche to rest in, the water is now spraying up in the air and landing all throughout a surface area about 100 times the diameter of the fountain's base.

I settled on just letting it rest on the side of the sink; it seemed to be the best option. Either way, the post-shower squeegy (is there even a correct spelling for that word?) that you've got to give to the tiles on the wall takes care of the mess.


But I like it in the end, for the peeing reason. 

A modest folk, the Danish.

 

Why do we not have stuff like this in Texas or Virginia? I can only speak for the two places I've lived, but I doubt there are many spots in all of America that offer free outdoor movies during the summer.

It was sponsored by a local Copenhagen television station called Zulu. The place was jam-packed. All I could think of was my Crazy Creek, and how I missed it so.

Bring your own food, bring your own beer, bring your own everything. Sure, you can buy stuff there, but let's just say I didn't have to bust out the awkward, "Yes, I AM happy to see you" response that comes when suspected by the ticket-tearer of shoving a 20 oz. Coke bottle down your pant leg.

That's because there ARE no ticket-tearers at a free movie! Ah, socialist Europe. You're down with me.


I know, it's blurry. But that's because a) My camera has so many settings that it has ceased to make taking pictures an easy task. Instead of simply offering flash/no flash like the cameras of old, this new age piece offers 25 more specific options: Portrait, Landscape, Landscape + Portrait, Night Scene, Night + Portrait, Sport, Indoor, Candle, Self Portrait, Available Light Portrait, Sunset, Fireworks, Museum, Cuisine (Cuisine?!), Behind Glass, Documents, Auction, Shoot & Select 1, Shoot & Select 2, Beach & Snow, Under Water Wide 1, Under Water Wide 2, Under Water Macro, Reducing Blur and Movie. Can you breathe still? In the time it will take me to learn which settings are appropriate for which situations, I could learn Chinese. b) When I saw that it was blurry, I was hesitant to go searching through the litany of options to try and select a better one, because the folks who go to these movies a few nights a week are not in awe of the scene like I am -- in other words, the kid taking pictures of this has blue flashing lights above his head that exclaim, "TOUR-IST! TOUR-IST! TOUR-IST!" in that unmistakeable European siren sound.

I went with Josefine and her boy toy, Adam. The movie, Inside Man, with Denzel and Clive Owen, was AMAZING. I love movies where the bad guys become the good guys in the end. Three thumbs up. 

And this woman from Christiania just acted like nothing was amiss. I know these birds are smart, but there ain't no bird that you can potty train. There's no way. I guess that's why she wears white.

A real, live hippie commune.


 

Welcome to Christiania...

...where they aren't exactly growing daffodils on their front porch...

...and violence is not glorified as it is in our society...

...or as it is in the EU, which members of this Danish hippie commune loathe to admit being members of, as evidenced by the backside of the sign you saw in the first picture.
 

"So, what do you want to see in Copenhagen?" Josefine asked me from the passenger seat of her Peugeot, reaching her neck around the headrest to get a better look at her new guest in town.

That was easy: The one thing I had even heard about.

"The hippie commune ... what's it called again?"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was in luck, she told me. The apartment she was house-sitting was only a five-minute walk from Christiania.
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Denmark may seem like an odd place for the dream of the 1960s to stay alive. I never really heard much about the Danish revolutionary spirit when reading about Ken Kesey, the beat generation or sex, drugs and rock n' roll. But the spirit is alive and well ... for now.

The thing is, Christiania has fallen on hard times. The Danish government has decided that allowing a bunch of strung-out heads to inhabit a converted military base in the heart of the city -- prime real estate if I ever saw any -- may not be the best option. They've still got permission to squat there at the moment, but there are storm clouds on the horizon.

Possession is 99% of the law for a reason: There's still that 1 percent left open to have your property taken back by its legal owner, in this case, the government of Denmark.


Don't get me wrong; they're all about tolerance and acceptance and all that jazz in this country. Education is free, for Christ's sake! (It was even free for foreigners until just a few years ago). Not only that, but ALL people get a place to stay in this country, from the guy who invented Lego's to the guy who invented sitting on his ass and drinking Carlsberg Elephant brews all day for a living. (Seriously, if you are a homeless person in Copenhagen, it is 100 percent by choice. There is a place you can go and simply say, "Hi, I'm homeless. Can I have an apartment?" And they'll say, "Sure, here are the keys, and here's how to get there.")

Shocking that the Danes think we're crazy, then, isn't it? Just because we want to build a little wall between the entire southern border of the United States and Mexico, we don't have compassion for the less fortunate. Whatever. These people must have been living in a cave since David Hasselhoff helped Mr. Gorbachev "tear down that wall." Fashion is cyclical, people. The Green Zone, the West Bank, now the Texas-New Mexico-Arizona-California foursome: Walls are totally back in style!

But to get back on track, Christiania used to be a place where one-and-all could come together, sing Kumbaya, and then buy hash and/or weed without fear of reproach by the police.


Honestly, I have no idea how they make a living now that it is illegal to openly sell herb, a fact that has been heavily enforced by the police since the trade was banned a few years back. The strip of wooden vendor stalls known as "Pusher Street" used to be an actual pusher street; now it's a depressing pissing contest between Christianians to see who can move the most "I am so crazy because I smoke weed!" cheesy t-shirts in one day.

You were never allowed to sell the type of drugs that President Bush used to snort in the enclave right in the heart of Christianshavn, just the stuff that President Clinton never inhaled. But still, politicians are politicians. Like Tupac said, they got a war on drugs so the police can bother me (and my dawgs in Denmark).


The some 800 or so residents of the commune are fighting to maintain their way of life. Bevar Christiania! shirts and stickers are behind every corner. Their website, www.christiania.org, offers an opportunity to send a protest mail to the Danish government. There are still the few bars and restaurants operating for the public that generate a little revenue, but it wouldn't take a regular Adam Smith to tell you that these folks are in trouble.

The poor folks at Christiania could relate to the oppression Bob Marley sang about in "Rebel Music," when he angrily denounced the police brutality a black Rastafarian was subjected to on a regular basis in the slums of Kingston.

Another road block?! Curfew. And I've got to throw, awaaaaayyy! Yes I, I've got to throw, awaaayyyyy! I tell you I, I've got to throw, awaayyyy! MY LITTLE HERB STALK!

Whether you're pro or anti, this is the way these people want to live. And they're not hurting anybody. Let's all wish them luck.

 

"Kobenhavn! sick! you lucky dog! and in the summer too. thatmeans there have got to be about 3000000000 hot blond chicks out everyday. oh how i miss them so. so heres what you have to do..."

A verbatim excerpt from my boy Kevin's email sent to me upon my landing in his old stomping grounds. I had to include it because he's right, there were about 3,000,000,000 hot blonde chicks out everyday.

But he was also right in his choice of adjectives for THE tourist attraction in Copenhagen: The Little Mermaid, as thought up by the famous Danish fairy tale author, Hans Christian Andersen.

"Avoid the stupid f***ing little mermaid at all costs," Kevin warned me.


Naturally, it made me want to go see it, because I had honestly never even heard of the thing until he mentioned it.


What's there to see, really? It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of -- this tourist obsession with an unimpressive, small statue of a mermaid that, quite frankly, would be completely unknown to the world if it weren't for Ariel and Walt Disney.

But you have to go, if only to marvel at the people who are actually marveling.

 

Who's ready for some GOD jokes?

This building in Copenhagen ... from this angle, with those power lines, does it not look like a giant fried wonton in the clutch of the Chinese God's humongous chopsticks?


And then we back up to my time in San Sebastian, which was almost over a month ago now. Did you know even Jesus smoked cigs?

 

There's something about cities with canals that just draw me in. Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen. All beautiful, charming locales. All with canals.

I mean, how many places can you go in the world that have a bar on the water like this? Why I never went and simply had a beer at this place, I will never know. STUPID, Bayless! GOD!


The weather pretty much sucks year round from what I hear. But not while I was there. And you know what sunshine means for this old man. One word: chillin.


When you have to parallel park a big ass boat like this, do you do the same thing that you would with a car? You know, the pull up about halfway alongside the boat in front, turn the stee...ring.....wheel (what is that thing called on a boat again?) all the way to one side, back in, curse yourself upon realizing you totally screwed up, pull back out, straighten up, pray that other boats aren't going to be blocked in the canal while you try to get your act together, etc., until you get somewhat parked?


And if the answer to that question is "yes," do you think there has ever been a time where two bad parallel parkers -- one in a car and the other in his boat -- have both held up traffic at the same time while trying to fit their vehicles into spots that happened to be right next to one another?

 

I don't care where you go. The people may dress differently, the music may sound a little strange to your ears, and the division of gender roles between man and woman may become dangerously blurred, but a house party is a house party, from Copenhagen to Timbuctoo. Punto.

It's the same -- only a little different -- in all western countries, at least. Instead of sitting around like my friends and I did at UVa, pregaming and bouncing off the walls to to Gentleman or A Tribe Called Quest, these Danes were shaking their booties to some house/techno/trance/how the hell am I supposed to delineate between all these electronic types of music. We are all one member of the human race, I suppose.


But look closely if you want to keep your ear to the grindstone of northern European (or is it just Danish? Or is it just Copenhagen? Or is it just this neighborhood in Copenhagen?) fashion. Yasser Arafat may be dead, but the kafiyah is sooooo in this summer. Add a splash of gel in your expensively cut hair, throw on some faded jeans, and just wrap that baby around your neck, no matter WHAT the temperature outside! You will be the envy of everyone in the club as the evening turns to Arabian night.


Seriously, all the dudes wear these things now. I had to snap a photo to prove it. 

Let's talk about rooms with a view.

This is from Josefine's own personal room in Copenhagen.

The next two are from Josefine's family's apartment, which is just a few meters away.


And this is from her friend Sofia's place, in the heart of the city.

I can see a tennis court from my room in Houston.

And a tree. 

Meet Josefine, my personal tour guide for all things Copenhagen. A Danish beauty in every regard: (Naturally) blonde hair, Alaskan Husky blue eyes, an ever-so-gentle voice with just enough British in her accent and Jackie Onassis-caliber elegance. A real catch, in every sense of the word.

Except for one thing.


Like everyone else in her hometown, Josefine is an unabashed, serial bike thief.


Josefine (pictured right) isn't actually riding a stolen bike at this particular moment. But that's only because she was fortunate enough to have access to a friend's wheels that night. Otherwise, she would have had no qualms about simply taking the first one that wasn't chained up to a pole like a hippie to a Redwood.

"I don't steal bikes anymore," she claims. "That was when I was like 15 or so."

Right. And I don't pick my nose anymore -- that was when I was like 5 or so. Give me a break. Not only did Josefine order me, without hesitation, to jack someone's free city bike shortly before this photo was taken ("free" only if you're able to reclaim your 20-kroner -- or roughly 3€ -- deposit once you're finished riding it), but she also expressed zero concern at her professional break dancer friend's brazen lift of a total P.O.S. non-city bike a few days later, jacked as we were leaving the swimming spot by the canal.

The blasé attitude towards bike theft among well-educated, middle-class youth in this city was astounding. Horrified by its acceptance among everyone I met, I refused to let the issue drop.

That's how I finally pried the truth from Josefine's lips; the actual reason that she hadn't stolen someone's ride in quite a while. Here's a hint: It has nothing to do with some newfound sense of maturity.

"I haven't stolen anyone's in a long time!" she said, semi-annoyed at my persistence in the matter. The "after all" follow-up was clearly next, judging by the look on her face.

"I have a bike at the moment."

So now the real story comes out, doesn't it? As you can guess, that excuse wasn't enough to shut me up. If anything, it fed my fire more than that Redwood would feed a paper mill.

"But you CAN'T do that," I explained, hoping that the proper inflections in my admonition would help convey the self-evidence of such a truth. "It's not like you're stealing the stuff I used to steal in ninth grade: Keychains, lighters and the occasional spaghetti plate from the Humps lunch line at Strake.

"You're stealing someone's bike."

The logic wasn't computing for Josefine.

"But ... someone stole my bike first," she said, staring confusedly at me, the ancient eye-for-an-eye defense being proferred for the jury.

The logic wasn't computing for Billy.

"SO?????"

Josefine is harmless, just like all Danes. Her people are nice; they're welcoming; they're peace-loving folk. Far from from using sticks and stones to break people's bones, the most Danes ever do to hurt people is depict a prophet or two in some political cartoons.

But they do have one glaring maleficence: They steal bikes, and they steal them with abandon.

So just beware the next time you're locking your wheels up to a pole on the sidewalks of Copenhagen -- and don't let a pretty blonde with eyes like the clear blue sky lull you into a false sense of security. It could be Josefine making an eye-for-an-eye contact with you, and there's no guarantee whether or not she'll be on the prowl for a free ride.
 

No, I am not going to Lebanon anymore. Yes, my Syrian visa will go unused, as it expires at the end of September. And I know, my blog is out of date.

(Also, I'm in Norway, okay?)

Over two months I've been gone now, and I'm still doing more than fine, money-wise. Chalk it up to being a tightwad: Eating (extremely) poorly, staying in zero-star accomodations whenever possible, taking AH tour (the Fat Tire Bike Tour of Berlin, which is a must in a city that size), cutting out old habits that hit the wallet hard about once a week, and mastering the art of the "self-invite."

There's an old saying -- applicable to the current situation among Sunni Arab governments' changing outlook on Israel, Iran and the Lebanese situation -- that says, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Then, there's a new saying, coined by me: "The friend of my friend is my friend." Put that one in your fortune cookie and eat it.

That's how I have my home base in Switzerland. That's how I turned my stay in Cologne from three nights to eight, yet paid for zero nights of lodging -- if you don't count the 79€ I threw down for the three days reggae music at SummerJam. But most recently, that's how I slept, drank and ate for free in Norway for the entire month of August thus far.

Thanks to the Lorentzen/Kleppe/etc. family's unending supply of hospitality, I have been chillin' like a major villain here off the west coast of Bergen since arriving August 2 -- and that was after a night in James and Sissy Lorentzen's MTV Crib in Oslo.

Like a lot of other things I am good at, the self-invite took very little practice to master. As with talking loudly, interrupting people, wearing Indian costumes to Virginia sporting events and writing columns about your father's puss-spewing back-cyst, all you need to become a pro at the self-invite is an astonishing lack of shame.

"Oh, you know someone with a house in Spain? Cool, yeah, I love Spain." (Three second pause, eyes avoiding contact with those of your new friend, as you wait to make your next move). "Can I stay with them?"

For y'all back home in Texas, I know, it is crazy that someone would say "no" to that. Some people are just jerks.

But I mean, who cares? What's the worst that could happen? Someone says "no"? I was five-feet tall going into ninth grade, and had asked a girl or two to go out with me by then -- trust me, I'm used to that word.

Besides, what's the best that could happen?

"Sure! Stay as long as you'd like!"

Don't mind if I do! What's for dinner?

Self-inviting, since I arrived in Cologne for SummerJam July 11, has been responsible for 18 free nights of lodging. Eighteen! And I'm slated to squeeze my current victims, an uber-welcoming Norwegian family that used to live in Houston (that's inside the loop, thankyou very much), for a 19th tomorrow night, back in Oslo. Shouldn't I just stretch the shot off the wall for a double to make it an even 2o, before heading back to Chez Knapp and the Swiss home base to add even more to the tally?

That is how you save money, guys. Sure, a tent would have made my wallet even fatter at this point, but I made a mistake and didn't bring one. Even so, 18. Give me some credit. That makes at least ten fewer times that I have had to cringe and do the internal "S**t, I have to go to the ATM again," self-flagellation routine.

Tomorrow, I leave this island for Oslo. There, I will spend mucho tiempo getting my small core of blog-followers back up to speed on the life and times of Billy Perejil. There's a lot to look forward to: the Danish shower system, Copenhagen bike thievery, canine death, why microwaves are evil, a modern-day plague from YHWH, and much, much more. Stay posted.

p.s. I JUST READ THAT BORAT IS COMING OUT WITH A NEW MOVIE SOON, HOLY GOD