Day 06 - A song that reminds of you of somewhere
Day 26 - Vienna: mood...catatonic.
Every journal entry from Europe started the same way:
Day __ - city: mood... _
Sometimes I would add what songs I was listening to that day as well, but not this time. I had been "on continent" by myself for a little over three weeks. I had another five and a half to go and I hit my first wall. Three and a half weeks of walking, going to museums and castles, drinking, eating, and merrymaking had taken it's toll. The night before I had nearly had to sleep on the streets...
Ok, wait, let me back up. I guess I need to start at the beginning...
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Day 25 - Vienna: mood...relieved (and a little freaked out)
I rolled into the Austrian capital around 11p.m. after a nice little weekend get away with three girls from Minnesota in Salzburg. They were a refreshingly wholesome lot, considering the vagabonds I had been hanging with to the point, and our little Sound of Music tour had been quaint if nothing else. On the train I saw a ridiculously cool double rainbow (swear to god...not just referencing this). I took it as a sign for good things ahead. There had been an issue at the internet cafe earlier that morning about reserving a bed in the hostel I wanted in Vienna, but I felt sure I would be able to secure lodging...I was 10 feet tall and bullet proof. I was a citizen of the world.
So as I said, I got in at 11p.m. The train station was overrun with bums and gutter punks. Honestly, it was the seediest scene I had walked through yet. I made a beeline for the recommended hostel, careful not to make eye contact or invite any kind of confrontation whatsoever.
The hostel was about a 2 mile hike from the train station...something that by this time, I was fully capable of doing in about 25 minutes without breaking a sweat. It was a nice, cool early summer night and I was truckin' it. The neighborhood was deteriorating quickly and I was (for the first time) beginning to question my guidebook. I kept going though and soon enough, I found the hostel. Exhausted from a long day of travelling and the brisk hike through RapyMcMurderville, I collapsed into a sofa as I waited for the night time attendant to come down and give me a room key. Eventually, a bleary eyed blonde hippie chick made her way to the counter and I went up and started the ritual of broken German phrases until she finally said, "enough, I get it. Sorry, but we're full."
Well shit. I hadn't been in this situation before...She said they had a big group moving out the next day and that I'd be able to get a room at noon. The only other "reputable" hostel was 5 miles away through a straight up ghetto, and it being so late, cabs wouldn't even come through there. What was I to do?
No worries she said! Just go to the bar across the street tell the bartender you need a place to sleep for the night. "The regulars typically take our overflow," she said. At this point, a couch at a random Austrian stranger's house sounded way more appealing than the alternatives so go across the street to the bar I did.
It was one of those dank holes-in-the-wall that years of cigarette smoke and spilled beer had formed a protective sheen over. The neon bar lights flickered, keeping time to the droning din of working class melancholy. As I walked in, backpack and all, the needle skipped off the record and all eyes were on me. Without glancing around, but feeling the burning stares of the sad sacks that populated "Bar Nowhere," I walked straight up to the bartender and said one word with a hopefully non-threatening shrug..."accommodation?"
He repeated my word...mocking my confused and kinda scared body language. Somewhere from the bowels of the place I heard a gruff, "Da." The metaphorical record started spinning again and emboldened by the quick response to my need, I shimmied back to the very last table in the darkest part of the bar, where my savior awaited.
She seemed old...60's by the look of her, which in hard labor years put her around 35. She weighed at least 350lbs and had a giant mole on the right side of her chin that had started sprouting it's own head of little blonde hairs. She took one look at me, looked back at her half full pint of lager, downed the beer, stood up and walked out with just the slightest acknowledgement that I should follow her. I still felt the laser beam stares as the door shut behind me, but the cool night air immediately washed away the feeling of despair that had permeated that place.
We walked 200 feet to another door that led to an elevator that went to the fifth floor that housed her apartment. The halls were barely wide enough for her massive hips to swing without bumping into the sides. The lighting was so low, that I could just barely make out her shadow as she lumbered own in front of me. We came to a door at the end of the hallway and she turned and said her first words to me..."ten euro." I produced the note and she opened the door. She motioned to her left to a bathroom and then to the right where there was a couch and a blanket. I thanked her and quickly collapsed again into a sofa. Within seconds I was out. The burlap bag that passed for a blanket tucked snuggly under my chin. It was 2a.m.
I awoke the next morning staring at the freakishly hairy back of a 250lb man... gorilla would actually be a better description. CNN international was blaring on the tv and he was sitting in a folding chair right in front of the couch. I tried to stay still, but he noticed me shifting and saw that I was awake. he just turned to me and stared...I was clearly in his seat. He said something in German that I took to mean, "get the fuck out of my house you little American weasel." He might have said, "good morning young man, can I offer you some coffee or breakfast?" but you know, German is a harsh language...all consonants. I always think I'm being cursed out. I scrambled for my shoes and pack and peaced out of there with a quickness. I found a cafe and spent the rest of my time till noon drinking coffee and reading one of the international papers.
I got to the hostel, I got a bed, finally did my first load of laundry, and booked hostels in every city I would be in for the next month! There would be no more random barfly sleeping for me!!!!
That night I went to bed early for the first time on my trip. I just couldn't bring myself to go down for drinks with my fellow travellers...couldn't muster the energy it takes to be charming enough to make friends on the spot...again.
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So on to the original post...
Day 26 - Vienna: Mood...catatonic.
The previous night's adventures had taken a toll on me. I got crazy homesick. I couldn't stomach the idea of one more day of sight seeing or one more night in a shitty hostel bar, running game on some Australian chick. The futility of it all was the only thing I could focus on.
It was well past noon when one of the other guys sharing the room came back in. He saw me laying on my back staring forlornly at the wire mesh of the bunk above me. He started to turn and leave, but something made him come back. He pulled up a chair and sat down next to me.
"Are you alright?" he asked...genuinely concerned.
"Sure man, I've just had a rough couple of hours and I'm a little beat...nothing to be concerned about."
"How long have you been here?"
I told him I had been there for a day and a half, but he was inquiring how long I had been travelling. I looked in my journal and responded, "26 days."
He looked at me and put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Get up. Get moving. Don't quit."
I looked him right in the eye and told him in no uncertain terms to fuck off.
But he didn't give up so easily. He told me that he too had been struck by a mid trip crisis, an existential hiccup, "the wayfarin' blues" if you will. He told me that it happened to damn near everyone that was on the road for a significant amount of time. He repeated himself, "Get up. Get moving. Don't quit."
Finally, I did just that. I got up, got dressed and headed out the door. I bought him lunch and we toured some Roman ruins. I put on a happy face for this guy who wanted so much for me to beat the blues, but inside I was miserable...woohoo, another set of ruins...woohoo, more marble statues on the street...woohoo, the Hapsburg's main castle...woo. fuckin'. hoo.
I somehow made it through most of the day without pitching a bitch and there was just one final destination on St. Getthefuckup's to-do list that day. It was Schloss Schoenbrunn, a magnificent summer palace on the edge of town.
As soon as I stepped off the bus and walked into the courtyard I could feel the history of the place all around me. I got vestigial whiffs of horses as I imagined it filled with carriages and the nobility they conveyed. I could hear baroque quartets in the distance and felt the joy of leaving the bustle of the city for this grandiose mansion. I wandered away from my new companion, lost for the first time that day in the majesty of old Europe. I was still feeling a little down, but at least I was interested.
I bypassed the interior of the house and began walking through the gardens to the rear of the castle. I put in my ear buds and hit shuffle on the iPod. I walked through a hedge maze and watched the children dart this way and that as their parents looked on from an observation platform. I strolled alongside more Roman ruins from an equally grand palace from antiquity. I stopped and smelled the fucking roses.
While I was engrossed in my music and the scenery, the sky went from soft blue to ominous black. I kept getting further and further away from shelter...paying no attention to the gathering storm. By the time the first grape sized raindrop struck my shoulder, I was several hundred yards away from the mezzanine.
I took cover under a grove of Renaissance era chestnut trees that lined the gravel avenues of the gardens. There was a concrete bench there and I sat down as the bottom fell out of the sky. First, tremendous gusts of wind whipped down the paths creating dust devils that chased fleeing tourists into the palace for cover. Everyone was running this way or that, frantic, trying to avoid the oncoming rains. Before long, the storm came in ernest. The cold rain dropped the temperature around me dramatically, but no water came through the ancient, leafy boughs above. Just then, as I watched the carnage unfold around me with detatched amusement, I noticed The Drive-By Truckers were playing a song in my head...
The sultry drawl of Mike Cooley's voice on top of the ringing acoustic guitars served to "enhance" the mood of the day. (See Day 4) The wail of the slide guitar wept of lives lived and lost. I was almost all the way through the song before I even began listening to the words...I barely caught the last line of the last chorus, "Now she's found herself and I've lost mine/and I'm just another guy who can't give her anything." I immediately hit repeat and listened closer this time. "Dreams are given to us when we're young enough to dream 'em, 'fore they can do us any harm/They don't start to hurt until we try to hold on to 'em, after seein' what they really are." The song, the day, the rain, the blues...it all just fit so perfectly together that it seemed almost by Providence. After the rains abated, I gathered my things and headed back into town. I found my counselor and we went out on the town. Yet another night of drunken debauchery ensued and by the next morning, I was over the hump and ready to rush out and take on the world for one more round.
I can't help but think of Vienna when I hear that song. Not only Vienna in general, but specifically that concrete bench under that chestnut tree in that garden of that palace in that rain storm. It's a tactile memory! I hope I never forget it. It's funny that a band that embodies the state of Alabama in a way that few others would ever hope to achieve also holds, for me, a promise of a larger world beyond it's borders. And Therein lies the beauty of a well written song.
"And 'Lord knows I can't change' sounds better in the song than it does with hell to pay."
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