We were in Germany because Frankfurt was one of the cheapest destinations in Western Europe, because we had a lead on a friend of a friend, and because Andrew had a little bit of a Germany-fetish going. He filled our walk to the nearest hostel with his own reverential parody of German memes and culture - the angry German, the fastidious German, and so on. Laughs were had, schwarmas were devoured (Germany is an excellent place to go for Middle Eastern street fare, by the way), and settled on a typical enough looking youth hostel nestled in the heart of industrial Frankfurt's tamped down interpretation of a red light district.
We had passed through a portal into some kind of millennial fairy tale. The hostel desk was serviced by three pretty girls who spoke fumbling but sufficient English in adorable accents, the lobby was appointed in warm wooden hues and materials in a style that suggested a medieval hunting hall furnished entirely from Ikea, and the entire establishment was filled with a colorful cast of international characters. The noisy British hooligans were represented as were the American study-abroad crowd, and the rest was filled out by an esoteric collection of happy-go-lucky travelers like Andrew's and my bunkmate Milosch, the sorely surly Serbian who was polite enough but carried heavy things behind his eyes.
We were free, we were unattached, and we were in the full swing of a tidal wave of events that had displaced us from where we thought we were supposed to have been; we had been imbued with a sense of teleological dislocation, as if liberated from the burden of satisfying our role in the Universe's grand design. Debauchery was the only logical next step.
One pub crawl, one Halloween extravaganza, and a few blurry mornings later and we were aboard a fast train with a ticket to ride all the way to Koln. I always enjoyed being on trains. In the big wide world, we were left to our own devices. In this confined space, we had time to regroup, relieved of the burden of tempting choices.
Next stop, and our ride, a friend of a Peace Corps friend, was waiting for us with her car at the platform. Eva took us on for a few nights in hilly Koln (or Cologne for you Francophones), and treated us to our second European fairy tale experience - a tour and unlimited tasting and buffet at the Krombacher Brewery, of which she was an employee. This second fantasy trip had a more Willy Wonka flavor to it, and we were happy to let it wash over us; the vestiges of West African material deprivation clung to us around the edges, and it gave everything the taste of luxury on our tongues.
Brussels. Ghent. Rotterdam. From one city to another by train - it was the perfect mode of transportation for the mode of life we had embraced. Our plans were haphazard, sometimes made a few days out, other times arranged as we strolled through the streets; the trains were indifferent to our personal chaos. They ran on schedules stuck to the wall, voyaging on whether the passengers arrived to occupy their seats or not. We could linger or longer or flee for our lives, and the trains were there for us.
But eventually, finally, we reached the end of the line. A last hurrah in Amsterdam, a few days to say goodbye to the feeling of disregard for the significance of tomorrow, and then we boarded our last train. The city metro rattled along, bearing us and our bags to the Amsterdam International Airport. It was a strange ending for me, because the story that was coming to close was rich and full, but I didn't really know what it was about. I found myself leaning back, head resting against the cool glass of the window, wondering how much it mattered if I even got on the plane at all.
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| this is what I looked like by the time I made it home. trefpool.com |
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