"Let the Chips Fall Where They May" Tour - Part IV

Norway, Finland & Sweden - Part IV – Return to Oslo

I would like to take this moment to prepare some of you, because I know that I am going to upset a few people with the next comment, but please continue reading, and I hope you will understand why I am going to say what I am:

Sweden is dull.

Now, I don't mean that "Sweden is dull and a red hot poker in the eye would be more preferable than a visit there", and Jonathan may have a different opinion of this than I do; I just mean that after all the majestic fjords, rugged landscape and wooded lakes of Norway and Finland, Sweden just wasn't up there in the running. Maybe the road I took was not the most scenic, maybe my senses were numb after seeing so many beautiful sights already or maybe I was just going blind from too much masturbation (well, I was single at the time), but something wasn't striking that harmonic chord within my hearts.

There was, though, something striking within my loins, and this made our excursion into Abba country imperative: the thought of meeting up with an amazingly beautiful Swedish girl named Malin that I had danced with, flirted with and sampled the saliva of previously at the Royal Mile Backpackers hostel in Scotland a few months prior to our trip. Malin and I had kept in touch, and upon hearing of our visit to Scandinavia, she offered Jonathan and I a place to stay in Östersund with her and her parents for a few days. Not only would this be a chance to see the inside workings of a Swedish family and view first hand a different culture, but the idea of saving some money on accommodation was a bonus as well!

Malin was a lovely girl! Blonde hair, lovely sarcastic smirk, sparkling eyes, and when she spoke Swedish, it was all I could do to not excuse myself to some private corner so that I might frantically work more towards my ensuing blindness. I would have driven thousands of miles through any amount of brain-melting dullness (e.g. the yawn-worthy M8 from Glasgow to Edinburgh) to see her again. Yes, it was about lust ... but lust with the hope of things on a grander scale! I wanted to fall in love with Malin and her with me; this would have been great! But Jonathan and I only had a day or two here, so quick, lusty encounters in the back seat of a Volvo would have to suffice for the present. I could accept that. Lust now, lay down the foundations, then return another day to romantically snuggle beside a file in our moose fur jumpers (or whatever they wear up there) and speak of the future we could have together raising blonde, transparent-skinned children and herding reindeer under the Aurora Borealis (though in Norway or Finland, not in bland Sweden). These were my secret thoughts as we navigated into the university city of Östersund. I say 'secret thoughts' because I didn't really want to break it to Jonathan that if Malin were to profess her heartfelt longing for me to remain by her side and never part again, I would have handed Jonathan the keys and said, "So long, pal. It's been fun. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!" But as you can surmise, since I am writing this from Poland and have been married to a Polish girl names Alicja for a number of years now, this passing dream never bore fruit, and, consequently, my friendship with Jonathan was saved.

But something was wrong. I can't really put my finger on what happened, because nothing really happened. Malin and I smiled when we saw each other, we pecked at each others lips like chickens in a feed barn, and we snuggled beside one another in bed at night ... but that was it. There was no real magic, no steaming of windows, no promises made to share woollen socks on a sunless winter's night. Everything was nice enough, but that was it ... just nice enough.

Maybe this lack of spark was due to the fact that after over one week in a car with Jonathan making animal noises to ourselves to break up the lengthy drive, my mental capabilities where on par with that of a wet sock (actually, the smell of our unwashed clothes was on par with a wet sock as well). Or maybe it was the fact that Malin, instead of smoking, was constantly shoving a pinch of snus (a moist, powdered tobacco) between her lips and gums every hour or so. She would even load up before going to sleep at night! Now, unlike American snuff, with snus and the way it is processed, you don't have to spit out a huge brown blob of tobacco juice every so often. That, at least, prevented Malin from falling into the same class as the red-neck, trailer park 'ladies' that I had the pleasure of growing up around in southern Georgia, but it did mean that when you went in for a kiss from time to time, you cleared you sinuses with the strong pepperminty aroma from the flavoured snus and indirectly developed a nicotine habit. I did try this Swedish habit forming substance a few times myself and didn't find the experience all that repulsive, especially with the mild buzz you got, but I just couldn't get used to the idea of having to dig a saliva soaked mass of tobacco the consistency of mud out of my mouth when it became stale and tasteless after an hour. Also, no matter how carefully you tried to cleanse your mouth out afterwards, there always seemed to remain a few granules between your teeth that made it appear as though you had just eaten the grounds out of an old coffee filter.

Jonathan and I stayed a few days, and the hospitality of Malin and her family could not be beat. The city was quaint, but nothing outstanding, and we all enjoyed ourselves with a film at the cinema one night (Dancer in the Dark, if I remember correctly) and a trip to one of the islands at the lake (where we took a bottle of wine only to discover that we had not thought of taking a corkscrew, so Jonathan and I proceeded to push the cork into the bottle instead and ended up squirting the ever precious, overly priced alcohol all over ourselves). But when the time came to leave ... well, we just left. Goodbye, speak to you soon on email, see you again some day. Anti-climactic (in more ways than one), but that is the way fate deals you your cards from time to time. Oh well, I probably could never have persuaded Malin to leave the humdrum countryside of Sweden for the rest of her life anyway.

The Rent-A-Wreck made the short hop back over into the land of its registration not long after we departed Östersund, and we began the final leg back to Oslo ... through the much more delightful scenery of Norway. There were no more pertinent stops along the way, but we did have to break up the journey with one more evening stopover at a camp site. Again, this was one of those Norwegian camp sites with the small wooden huts that put many of the places I had resided in during my late teen years to shame (I spent an entire summer once in a house in Tallahassee with no hot water and having to share a pull-out sofa with what seemed like the entire roach population of northern Florida). This place had a TV, kitchenette, two bedrooms, hot running water and a cosiness that relaxes you to the bone. Hell, after sleeping in hostel dorm rooms for so long and having to smell the stench of a thousand sweat-filled hiking boots that had traversed the Scottish Highlands and trudged through cow and sheep shit all day long, this place was pure bliss!

I remember sitting outside that night and staring at the clear evening sky, seeing all those stars and even a satellite or two criss-crossing the expanse as they made their way around the globe delivering television signals to homes or spying on whoever needed spying upon at that time. I felt so moved that I went up to the phone booth at the entrance to the camp ground and called my father back in the States. Just as I was dialling, a ghostly green flare streaked its way across the sky, and as my father picked up the phone, I immediately blurted out that the Aurora Borealis had just started playing up and I wished he could see this marvellous spectacle of spectral light. Unfortunately, this would be one of the last few times I spoke to my. The next time we spoke was face to face in the few days before he passed away from cancer a month and a half later. I still really wish we could have seen the Northern Lights together. He would have enjoyed that to no end.

After two weeks on the road and around 4,000 km, our ragged vehicle plastered with decals displaying our cheapness in car rental agencies coasted back within the confines of Oslo city limits. We had seen quite a lot in that short amount of time and had met some interesting people, but my time was nearing an end, and I needed to get to Poland to start a teaching job in Kraków. My credit card had also reached the point of nearly crumbling to bits because of overuse, and I feared that repayment of the petrol and petrol station hot dogs was going to put a serious bite on any of the measly earnings I was going to accumulate from my future employment. But there was only a few ways for the budget traveller to get from Scandinavia to Poland, since flying out of Oslo at this time meant that you had to have the financial backing of one of the princes of Saudi Arabia, and that was by ferry, bus or hitch-hiking. I was sick of being cooped up in a car, so hitching was out, and a bus seemed a worse choice, so a ferry seemed the most enjoyable. And where was the closest ferry terminal with a direct link to Poland? After studying a map for a few moments, I looked at Jonathan, and he looked back at me, and we both nodded approval. Two nights after returning to Oslo, we jumped on the night bus to Stockholm. We would just have to give Sweden a second chance.

How far? - Tuscany, Italy 2007

Six years ago I made my way around northern Italy with a friend of mine during the Christmas season. I was going through a bad patch of depression due to situations with a married girl I was leading astray, and with whom I actually worked as well (a double whammy), and felt that being around Kraków during this lonely holiday season whilst my 'love' interest was enjoying Christmas carp* with her husband was not in my best interest. Believe me, I know what you are thinking: "Well, it's your own fault for screwing around with a married woman! What did you expect?" Yes, that is true, but I never claimed to always use my better judgement, and, you know, the fact that she had a nice ass was distorting my view of reality at that time. Hey, I'm a guy!

*(To this day, I still don't understand the tradition in Poland of carp for Christmas. Why carp? Of all the fish you could choose from and are forced to eat due to Catholicism, why would you decide upon the greasiest, boniest bottom feeder of all Poland's fair lakes and rivers? I don't particularly like fish of any sort, so every Christmas, I usually end up cooking my own personal meal. Last year it was chicken curry!)

To postpone the realisation of the fact that I was do something so utterly stupid in my life, my friend and I drove down through Slovakia and Hungary to north-western Croatia then on into Italy for a few days of sightseeing and general "I've never been to Italy before" cruising about, stopping in San Marino, Siena, Pisa, Florence and Verona before making our way back through Vienna, my former home in Uherské Hradiště, Czech Republic for New Year's Eve and then back to Kraków to start work again. I really enjoyed what I saw, but we were not able to take much in as time was limited so we just tried to squeeze in as much as possible.

The summer of 2007 finally brought me back to Italy, more specifically to the Tuscany region between Florence and Siena, for a week's holiday at a lovely old villa in the small town of Marcialla. This time, though, I was accompanied by my wife (who has an exceptionally nice ass*) and my one year old daughter (the result of my wife having an exceptionally nice ass). We decided to split this lovely abode with another couple we know from Kraków, along with their daughter, who is roughly the same age as ours, and Jonathan, who would be gracing us with his presence for three days before he began leading a tour out of Rome.

*(At the time of writing this, my wife was mulling over whether she found this comment complimentary or insulting and degrading. Well, she agreed to let me post it, so it must have leaned more towards the 'complimentary' side, which is, of course, how it was intended to be.)

The two thirds of 2007 were a strange period in life when it concerns old friends. After nearly eight years, I had the chance to become reacquainted my my friend JuLes when he passed through Poland on his way around the world, and since May 2007, we haven't been able to shake off Jonathan for more than a month! Prior to this year, the last time I had seen Jonathan was about five years before at my wedding, but his continuous reappearance on our doorstep, no matter which country we seem to be in, had even caused my wife and I to include him in our house hunting plans.

"So, dear, what do you think about this place?"
"It's very nice, but what about Jonathan's room? I think it needs to have a separate entrance from the outside and it's own toilet. I mean, I would hate to have to share a bathroom with him, wake up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet and find him sitting naked in the bathtub coated in smalec* with one of our cats and singing tunes from the Grease soundtrack whilst dancing an Irish jig."
"Hmmm ... I see your point. Let's keep looking."

*(Basically lard with gristle. Quite tasty on bread with a sprinkling of salt!)

Who knows how many places we passed up due to this recent conditional, so it is a good thing that we all get along well, and so far, my wife has never mentioned that I need to find a better class of friend or stop hanging out with Canadians as it might be a bad influence upon my character or damn my soul to the fiery pits of hell. Well, I guess it was too late for that, as I was already guilty of coveting my neighbour's wife and committing adultery anyway, right?

Tuscany is a gorgeous region ... undulating hills and curvy roads that make driving interesting (especially with Italian drivers careening around every corner without so much as a nudge of the steering wheel to get back into their own lane), quaint villages that seem lost in time, medieval cities that have apparently been cared for since their founding and have never slipped into decay, vineyards and olive trees more plentiful than the spots on a teenager's gob ... and the chianti made around here holds a wondrously tasty secret in every drop on the tongue. Even the cheap stuff is good enough to upgrade the town wino into a connoisseur. But when you look under the proverbial rug, there are a few specks of dust that have been left behind. Nothing major that would truly distract from the overall beauty, but just enough to irritate the nose and cause a sneeze from time to time.

This irritant mainly comes in the form of signs proclaiming the distance to other locales. Being the chianti region of Italy, maybe those responsible for printing and placing these markers overindulged before heading back to work after their afternoon siesta, because they all seemed to have been placed willy-nilly along their perspective routes. When trying to discover the location of our place of residence for the week, there was a sign at a roundabout claiming that Marcialla was just three kilometres down the road to the right, but as soon as you made that right, there was another sign claiming that our destination had magically gained a kilometre and was now four away. There did not seem to be any construction upon the road to have warranted this claim, and so far, the whole sci-fi time / distance phase shifting, wormhole, Star Treck-y alternate reality thing is just in films, so I have no idea where this extra kilometre came from. Maybe they just got the signs backwards and put the three before the four. That's logical enough. Simple mistake, though easily corrected. I could have written the whole thing off and never let it cross my thoughts again. But then ... on the way to San Gimignano, the first sign we came across said 11 km; after a bit further down the road, the next sign we came to said "San Gimignano 11 km". Two kilometres further, the sign appeared again in exactly the same form! 11 km! Were we stuck in the Twilight Zone never to reach our destination, forever stuck on the same stretch of road never to reach our destination, or had the manufacturing plant just produced too many signs with the same number on them and didn't wish to have anything go to waste? After what seemed to be a few dozen of the same 11 km signs, there was finally a change, and our fate did not seem to be so dire. Out of nowhere came a green sign with white reflective lettering proclaiming that we were now just 4 km from the medieval hilltop town that we had been seeking all afternoon for some an unknown distance. But we were wary at this point and would not believe this metal prophet of measures until we actually happened upon the solid city walls themselves. A collective sigh could be heard in the car as San Gimignano same into sight ... well, a collective sigh could have been heard if it were not for the screaming and screeching of my daughter in the back seat who seems to treat every car ride as though she is being tortured by cruel and heartless parents who most surely brought her into this world for their own sick amusement by dragging her around picturesque countrysides, spoiling her with home cooked meals at every sitting and generally caring for her well-being.

It is a very odd trait of my daughter, but a gruelling 18 hours trapped within the confines of a metal box on four wheels spewing carbon monoxide into the atmosphere seems not to be a huge deal. We had decided to go by car, a task we shall not repeat again any time in the near future being that I am the only one with a licence and the ablity to drive in our family. On the whole, minimal fuss is made, and a few stops to stretch the legs, air out the nappy region (our daughter's, not ours) and have a nose about in petrol station shops seemed to suffice. But if you just wish to make a quick 30 minute trek down the road, she howls like an irate banshee having her eyebrows waxed! This really is so off-putting when it comes to trying to make daily excursions to nearby locations of touristy goodness that we eventually resigned ourselves to just lounging around the villa, which suited our daughter just fine as it appeared that the high point of her day was a trip to the playground that graces the village market square; a playground that was still packed with kids at an hour before midnight, as I discovered one evening on the way back from collecting Jonathan from the train station in Siena. Needless to say, the high point of the day for my wife and I was when bedtime came for the little girl, and we could actually both sit down at the same time without having to chase our daughter down, stop her from stuffing rocks or rotten olives that had fallen on the ground into her mouth or prevent her from petting (or should I say 'mauling') one of the scabby local cats that seemed to be living out their final days at the same villa as us.

Aside from the inconvenient hours of siesta (though I am sure it's not called 'siesta' in Italy, but I'll be damned if I know what they do call it) that only occurred whenever you were hungry and did not wish to cook for yourself or really needed to get to a shop to purchase toilet paper, the only other real bother were the mosquitoes. Well, the only real bother for me and the husband of the other couple that shared the villa with us should I say. I have no idea what it is, but those damned little blood-sucking specks of pestilence never really went after my wife and her friend that much, only a few bites here and there as though they were taste-testing, and they left the young ones completely off their menu. But as for us guys ....

"Hey, Sam, you tried the kids yet?"
After making a sound reminiscent of a camel dislodging two months worth of phlegm from the back of its throat, Sam replies, "My advice: stay away, pal! Those things taste like sour milk, and there's a constant funny smell around the buttock region. But have you tried the males? I gorged myself stupid last night! Give them a shot; you won't regret it! Bon appetit, my friend!"

There must be a kind of scent or something that attracts these flying demons from Date's Inferno to my pasty white flesh (I mean 'delicate alabaster skin'), because any exposed region below the neck line was proclaimed as fair territory to extract my precious blood of life from. My feet and ankles especially received the worst of their plasma mining activities, and by the end of our vacation in Tuscany, these appendages looked as though I had developed end stage leprosy or an awful case of chicken pox that mysteriously confined itself only to specific areas. My poor daughter frequently has allergies that cause her to scratch herself silly in certain places, and we do our best to supply creams to soothe her and tell her not to scratch. Well, I guess I wasn't much of a role model as I myself was going for broke and clawing at my feet and arms until they were raw. Eventually, we found out that the local shop had mosquito repellent, but the damage was done, and the scratching probably only attracted more of the little bastards with the smell of blood emanating from my open wounds.

The confusing distance signs, strange opening hours and airborne monstrosities in no way degraded the holiday into some sort of vile week of having bamboo shoots shoved under fingernails or anything like that, and by and large, it was a relaxing week (not taking into account that my daughter kept pointing at Jonathan and saying "Da-da") filled with warm sun, excellent wine, good friends and astounding scenery. The villa where we stayed was built some time in the 15th Century and decked out with old relics, paintings and antique wooden furniture (which my wife had a tendency to leave wet bottles and cups upon, leaving a water ring that for 200 hundred years had never tarnished its surface. I think this is my soul mate's unconscious way of marking her territory, similar to that of a cat rubbing the corners of its mouth against objects), and one of the rooms even contained a plaque claiming that Michaelangelo had once resided there for a time. Now, as to whether this is Michaelangelo the famous artist or Michaelangelo the local town gimp there are no discerning comments, but we'll just accept it as the famous one, if it's all the same to you. All in all, a lovely place with a spectacular view that I would happily recommend and return to again and again!

But, as with anything good, it must come to an end. The week drew to a close, and our week-long companions packed up early and rubbed salt into our wounds by heading to Naples for another week in the sun whilst we squeezed ourself back into the car for another two fun filled days of tarmac, discomfort and restlessness as we hit the trail once more for home. Holiday time was over, memories were created, friendships strengthened (after a DNA test proved that Jonathan did not sire our daughter), and as we pulled away from Marcialla, we discovered, with a smile, that we had even stolen the towels from the villa, though my wife swears this was purely by accident!

Get Stuffed!

Just read a blog from a good friend of mine today concerning the small stuffed cow that he has been travelling the globe with for quite a few years now. If you are interested, you can read about it here: http://www.julianpegler.com/?p=162

Well, the point being that JuLes and his cow, named Biff, are not an oddity in this world. I myself have been known to jump a plane or train with the ever faithful Balthy the stuffed emu in order to satiate his lifelong quest for pins (flags or crests from countries visited). Jonathan, my good friend and homeless Canadian from the earlier Scandinavian adventures, was actually the one who forced me into this existence of plushness when he discovered Balthy in the lost-and-found bin at the High Street Hostel in Edinburgh. Balthy was presented to me, Jonathan told me that I must henceforth carry this modified beanbag wherever I venture and that I must affix the aforementioned pins to its fuzzy flesh. Though Biff and Balthy have actual form and a vague resemblance to some living creature, Jonathan carries around a stuffed sock with white cut-out paper eyes, ragged green bit of wash cloth hair and repeatedly replaced mangled cigar butt (because someone usually ends up smoking the cigar at some point) sticking out from a hole in the sock, all this based upon a Canadian icon of sorts called Ed the Sock - a loud-mouthed, arrogant "host" of a music video program on TV. Jonathan has even kept the same name and has gone as far as fabricating some strange background story of how "his" Ed the Sock is the evil twin of the original and wished to see the world instead of being trapped in the clutches of television stardom all his existence. Give him a break, he's Canadian!

There are various reasons why we and many others like us cavort with these inanimate travel companions, but I guess the main underlying reason is to have some sort of unique foreground for the photographs we take: A slightly out-of-focus Biff against the expanse of the Red Square in Moscow; Ed the Sock in the gentle grip of a young monk in Thailand; Balthy warming up to an elderly woman selling bird feed in a Sarajevo market. I guess that many of these photos began as a humorous gesture to amuse of family and friends, but then it became an obsession ... a sickness, even ... especially with Jonathan and I ... well, mostly Jonathan. Competitions started arising, points to be scored, goals to achieve. Could one of us get a Russian border guard to have their image snapped with a stuffed doll? Can you sneak a shot of the plush critter sitting astride a sawdust filled seal in the Tromsø Polar Museum? Would the Pope give these cuddly items a squeeze? And even more so, would he let you capture this on film for the faithful masses to become exposed to!? Sometimes these reasons outweighed logic and became our sole motives for going certain places; some of which have been fulfilled, some waiting for another day.

I guess there is also the fact that most us like being in the spotlight a bit, as well. I know that I can be a ham at times. Nothing starts up a conversation or attracts various sideways glances or full-on gawking as meandering up to some well-know or sacred landmark, withdrawing a mangy sock / cow / emu from your rucksack and then trying to find that perfect angle and shot that would encompass the beauty of the location only to flaw it with the presence of a tattered and stuffed something. I am not too sure how well this has been at winning the hearts of beautiful women, but then again, I am married to a beautiful little lady, and JuLes has the lifelong companionship of the lovely Gerri. Jonathan, on the other hand ... well, what kind of impression could you hope to make with a grubby sock puppet?

The well-dressed Canadian meanders over to a table occupied by a beautiful dark-haired woman that has been catching his eye all evening: "Hi, my name is Jonathan, very nice to meet you!"
With a shy, come-hither look, the lady replies: "Hello. I'm Bertha. So, how did you end up in this small café in rural Cumbernauld?"
"Actually, I've been travelling constantly for over the past 10 years now. I now work as a tour guide for a prestigious firm which pays me to traverse the globe in search of exotic locales."
More sparkles glint within her eyes: "Wow! That sounds really interesting!"
Jonathan notices the sparks flying and helps himself to the empty seat beside her: "Yeah, it is fun, but I really use it as a vehicle for my true love ... photography. As a matter of fact, I was wondering if you could help me with a photo right now." Jonathan reaches into his day pack resting on his lap and pulls out Ed: "Here, could you hold this a moment?"
Those once magical, sparkling eyes dull into the colour of charcoal that has been urinated upon to extinguish any remaining hint of flame: "Excuse me," she says in a flat tone typically utilised by postal clerks, "I have to get back to the doctor now and have a bad case of haemorrhoids examined."

Now, the story if he had been travelling with a cute, cuddly plush creature the likes of Biff or Balthy:

Jonathan notices the sparks flying and helps himself to the empty seat beside her: "Yeah, it is fun, but I really use it as a vehicle for my true love ... photography. As a matter of fact, I was wondering if you could help me with a photo right now." Jonathan reaches into his day pack resting on his lap and pulls out an adorable, stuffed, fluffy kitten: "Here, could you hold this a moment?"
Her eyes flare up with brightness unseen except by those who have had near-death experiences and claim to have 'seen the light'. She stands up, grasping the collar of her button-down blouse and ripping the front open in one blindingly quick movement that sends mother-of-pear flying across the room to expose lingerie and cleavage that would have most mortal men shaking in their Wellington boots and drooling like a little child after an injection of Novocain. "Take me now!" she screams with passion. "Show me the love that only a heart as pure as yours can deliver unto my unworthy soul! Let me become fertile with your seed and bear forth the fruit of your sacred loins! I am at your whim ... command me and deliver me into the paradise that is your embrace!"

I'm sure JuLes could back me up on this and that he had a similar experience when telling his future wife-to-be about Biff ... right?

Whatever the reasoning the three of us have for doing what we do, we are not alone. There are others out there, and I think the world would be more boring and a much less happier place without us. At least we give others something to point and laugh at.