“It’s Our Time Down Here”

“Our time” is a sentimental notion we attach to those periods we never wish to lose, a bond created between a place and a band of brothers and sisters sharing their defining moments, the moments when Truth resonates despite any external antagonism, moments when, as Hunter S. Thompson put it, “whatever we were doing was right… we were winning…” When time has no meaning at all it is most precious.
Music is the heartbeat of an era, and it is the youth that mostly and closely relates to the tempo of the time. It is that special time in life when freedom, curriousity, innocence, individuality, and an overall zest for life all culminate to an apex…that limited time when discovery of the world and all of its evils leads to endless rage and vows to resist tyranny and reside outside of conformity.

Adventures across Europe often lead us underground, mostly in the metros commuting here and there, hopping turnstyles, or smiling at scratch-tagging kids running from car to car.
Like on a History Channel program that vanished while I was abroad, much of Europe disappears underground. Centuries of civilizations built on top of one another hide histories, hidden passages, catacombs, tunnels, and sometimes ancient city blocks. Almost every bar that I ended up in in Paris had a basement discoteque jamming out sounds to pulsating bodies no matter how small or dank or airless the crumbling stone cellar was…
Many of the large clubs in Prague and Budapest have multiple levels winding below ground in twisted mazes. Barely more two decades ago all of the clubs were truely underground to every social and political connotation of the word – a way of life under authoritarian rule. I can only imagine them with the romantic perspective of a Western up-bringing: casually strolling past Red Army guards on a winter night with a sharp wind attacking from the Danube…ringing the bell on a dark doorstep dangerously close to the guards…repeating the memorized phrase in my mothertongue to the old woman that answers the door…following the long, dark hall to the sixth door on the left and down the stairs past bald bouncers that require an additional password and into…

One of my favorite discoveries in Clubland, Europe was not a club – it was a machine, a living, machanical building with moving parts and breathing walls and a metal garden…green smoke lingered in the air and exotic substances smuggled in from Mos Eisley lined the tables. The corridors meandered through different levels, mostly below ground, some circled back into the same room…that night the two rooms of music offered happy hardcore and hard drum & bass/hardstep leaving no relief anywhere in the building from the mental strain of the high decibal sounds at 160+ beats per minute… After a few hours of aimlessly wandering between the two sweaty dancefloors and pulsating wall and flashing lights and closing bars, disoriented delerium set in. Realizing the approaching denouement we settled into seats by a spinning propeller to wait for the metro to reality which started running at 05:00.

The tunnels of the Buda Castle Labyrinth in Budapest were dug millineans ago by the underground rivers that feed the natural thermal springs of Hungary. The Turks connected the tunnels with cellars in the Middle Ages and they were used by militrary manuevers, bomb shelters, and escape routes though the second World War. Only a portion of the labyrinth is open to the public with a cheesy history-of-man timeline setting and faux prehistoric cave paintings, statues, and “alien” artifacts. I had read of a fountain of free-flowing wine somewhere in the Labyrinth not on any map, but all of the Hungarian locals that I asked dismissed it as an urban legend.
We arrived at the labyrinth an hour before closing and were given the oil lamps that visitors use after 6pm when the tunnel lights are turned off. This only added to the feeling of being some fedora-doning explorer. We explored the dark, dank passageways and came to a brightly lit room. In the center was the fabled fountain covered in ivy and basking in a brilliant light from heaven as if Hollywood had designed it. I felt like a weary treasure hunter who had finally proved to himself and the world that the search for the myth was not some far-fetched wild goose chase. Only after we all drank from one of the four spickets spewing red wine and filled empty water bottles did I notice the faded sign warning in three languages that the wine was not safe for consumption. Was this alcoholic liquid that remained unsealed in a dank cave many meters underground and constantly being airated through pumps, tubes and concrete really unhygenic, or was the sign merely there to keep tourists from drinking the well dry? I didn’t get sick.

The Quinta da Regaleira in Sintra, Portugal took on its present day design after Carvalho Monteiro acquired the property in 1893 and commissioned architect Luigi Manini with the four hectacre palace and garden project. The walled grounds are heavily treed with lush paths lined with statues of classical gods, grottos, an aquarium, tennis court, fountains, greenhouse, chapel, lakes, and stone towers. The overall theme revolves around Monteiro’s interest in esoteric and metaphysical idealologies; it is a place where magic and landscape meld into a journey for the initiate. Sctructures have alchemical, Masonic, and Templar symbolism and such names as The Terrace of the Celestial Worlds. There are numerous entrances to underground passageways throughout the garden that are suppose to symbolize a path between darkness and light, between Heaven and Earth.
Much of the tunnels is pitch black except for the occaisional rope light lining a few sections. As we stumbled along in the dark behind the beam of my single flashlight splashing in the small stream in the middle of the tunnels that drained rain water, as the laughs and screams of young tour groups echoed in the distant, as Brandon realized that he could see much better underground without his sunglasses on, as I explored uncharted cave crawlspaces in the crevises of dark corners, and as we came upon the seal in the center of the floor of the Initiatic Well we all felt that we were on our own Goonie adventure, and that it would be over the moment we ascended the 27-meter spiral stairway that circled the well to the surface.

When “our time” is over it becomes the “good ‘ole days”. The glory and certainty of its prevailance fades into forgotten dreams and failed missions. Its brilliance dims until it is indistiguisable from the gray exterior world. It is inivitable that it must die. Even though growing up does not neccessarily mean giving up the revolution of youth, it does mean giving up the immortality of it. Even if time goes on ad infinitum, the moment is mortal and is gone before it is recognized as such.
“Our time” is defined by discovery. When discovery ceases, the era is over. No matter how meticulously documented it may be, the era will never be fully understood except by those that lived it. The Truth is dead because it is forgotten or given up for other endevors as we ride up “Troy’s bucket” to “our parent’s time.” But in the cycle of things as they are, it continues. Only after it is gone does an era earn its reverence, respect, and awe…always by the next generation searching for something similar, their own piece of immortality, the own dream, their own second on this planet when nothing esle matters because what is happening here and now is the best there is.

Propoganda for Potential Expats

I envy those with dual citizenship. The options for living under two different flags are appealing, and if one is in the EU then the entire Union is open for choices. As life at home grows old other cultures become more intriguing, and a different balance between freedoms and regulations can be explored. In another couple of generations of globalization the value of having two passports will be much more apparent.
Europe has hit me with a brick of inspiration, opportunities, and amazement. With so many places one must live here for a period of time to fully ingest even the first course. I fantasize about transplanting myself with at least a few choice friends here to join the European expat community. The EUR/USD is 1.4044 right now (July 29, 2009 16:47 EST), and the Euro has yet to look back since it surpassed the value of the dollar at the end of 2002. Economic reasons aside, living in a different country for a period of time offers a fresh perspective on life and the global impact of everyone’s actions, and Europe has the densest area of culture and history. It is a little more of a change than moving to a different state, but adaptation to the new daily life can be just as quick and easy… And two or three years that normally slip by as forgotten memories in the daily, familiar grind will bring endless experience in a new culture.
Since one-way flights are so cheap here, any city can be chosen as a home base and jump-off point to the rest of the continent. Most signs point to Amsterdam for my first choice of new homes. Not necessarily my most favorite new city, but the opportunities make it a highly optimal option: everyone speaks English; the city already has over 40,000 full-time American residents; it is a wonderfully international city with many possibilities in the tourist market; it is a highly intellectual and eco-friendly environment; The Netherlands American Community Trust helps and funds cross-cultural organizations and business between the two countries… and whether or not it is due to the widely-known liberal laws and tolerances of Holland, there seems to be respect and peace among the people in the streets – a sense of balance in the Force…
Expatriation is difficult only in possessing the right information and procuring the proper papers. Although the entire process is very time consuming, today anything can be learned from enough hours Googling. At the same time it has become much more difficult to exist under the radar in a foreign country, so the prospective expat must become more creative in finding a need for himself in his prospective home…

¿Homesick?

Trapped in the timewarp between hemispheres and cultures, my mind still in metrics… I’ve somehow been home for days. Travel between Barcelona and New Orleans took an ungodly amount of hours: Bus from Barcelona to Girona, missed connection; rescheduled flight from Girona to London Stansted Airport; Bus from Stansted to Heathrow; flight from Heathrow to Newark, NJ; nine hour overnight layover in Newark Airport; delayed flight from Newark to home…
Home is a foreign concept. It is that place with which we find comfort, familiarity, and identity but after months on the road seems difficult to relocate. Already back at work, I am still adjusting to the tiresome sleep-schedule of the nocturnal industry while trying to deal with the utter weirdness of being home. It offers enough change to almost simulate the feeling that I am still traveling – all that was once old becomes excitingly new again, for a moment at least.
My first night in my hostel home in Horta was world music night. We had wine and cheese and random people passed around a guitar and played international classics and favorites. The Swiss girl whose job I was about to take sang songs in Spanish, French, German, Portuguese… I was intrigued by the romance of the stories she told about these traditional songs about Brazilian politics or French love affairs. And as she played and sang “The House of the Rising Sun” for “the guy from New Orleans” I was equally mesmerized by the familiar words and quickly remembered how unique and fascinating my home is, how it’s just as captivating as any other exotic far-off land… I felt something that may have resembled homesickness, but it quickly faded due to the constant awareness that my time in Europe was rapidly coming to an end.
Barcelona is much like New Orleans – in every way that I cannot seem find words to relate… It is warm and slightly humid for summer, but nothing compared to the sauna at home. Things are completely unpredictable here. All Night Loitering is tolerated until an official or police officer politely asks you to move so they can clean the stoop/beach/grass. Alcohol is not sold in the markets past 11pm, but there are always hundreds of beer-sellers in the street to offer “beer, cerveza, cold beer…” I watched the street price of a can of Estrella Damm bounce between 1 and 1,50 euros from June to July depending on supply and demand…
I became attached to my happy community in Horta. It was originally a village on the outskirts of the city when Barcelona consisted of nothing more than the Roman province of the city center. Horta is a small community of neighbors, schools, markets, parks, but no tourists. One actually gets the feeling of being in Spain. It is tranquil, peaceful… My home was the Garden House Hostel, a three-floor house build around the turn of the 20th century with a tranquil garden and rooftop terrace where I would take my afternoon siestas in the sun. The hostel attracts only the most decent of travellers.
Settling down after a period of travel is difficult enough: Everything in travel is new and changes every moment. Burnout causes new sights and parties to become boring, making new friends and remembering names becomes unimportant, and exchanging facebook info before checkout time is not worth getting out of bed for. Anchoring down to one place does seem to alleviate travelidos, but if one lives at a hostel, assimilation continues to be difficult when great friends are made only to leave hours later for other realms. Travellers remain high on the fresh places they are discovering, but for the hostel resident there are only fresh faces – they constantly change, staying long enough to spark an interest, a hint of connection, similarity, inspiration..and then they leave again in an energy fueled by freedom and the unknown…
“And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
-T.S. Eliot

Cesky Memories

Back to the Praha in the recesses of my mind… Our train ride was long and after an exhausing last night in Budapest. The drizzling, overcast weather was how one would expect Eastern Europe to be. The coutryside was littered with small farms and drab, crumbling buildings. The mist hung down low between the trees to make it seem like the hillside was smoking.
Prague was a blur right off of the bat; we checked into the Clown and Bard around sixpm and downed the first of many pizzas from across the street. The independent pub crawl started at the hostel bar at ten, but we started on shots of Becherovka around eight. It was the rest of the NOLA crew’s last stop so it was unavoidable not to do it big: the drunken pub crawl started with an hour of open bar for beer, wine and shots. We were a crew of thirty or so, mostly Americans, but a number of Germans and Brits. We continued to the Blind Eye around the corner, alternating shots of Absinthe and Becherovka along the way. We lost a few drunks and made our way to the third bar where things began to get hazy… we had to take the tram to the last stop on our pub crawl – the infamous Chapeau Rouge. I felt sorry for the locals on a tramcar, dealing with two or three dozen wasted backpackers dangerously raising the decibel level and having one-armed pull-up competitions on the handrails…the club was a massive, girating blur. The only proof that I have of waiting on a tram for half an hour and taking a cab are Brandon´s pictures.
The next day we, for some reason, founded our on pub crawl through our sightseeing tour. We started with shots of Becherovka and Fernet Stock with lunch and carried the trend to bars all the way to Charles Bridge. The consensus back at the hostel was that everyone had a blast at Chapeau Rouge, but no one could remember it – we decided on a return visit.
Monday night we went to the amazing Cross Club – a mechanized, moving metal art-piece of a club. One could easily get lost in the maze of corridors and rooms among the flashing lights and hard thumping drum and bass or happy hardcore. I ran into my old friend Mollie there and we partied with her until the metro started running at 5am…the Cross Club is a must on the Prague list.
The next day I was burnt out – exhausted from nonstop partying and moving; too much travel: all of the trains, beaches, mountains, cathedrals, and clubs all seemed to morph into each other in my mind, languages combined to form nonsensical international phrases, a result of too much input in not enough time…the new becomes bland and the unkown becomes uninteresting. Exhausted, hungover, and ambivalent we marched across town to the Prague castle and the awe inspiring cathedral atop it, one more sight, some more pictures, and more memories to cloud the mind..
And then my hometown connections left, and I stayed in Praha for another two days, Koruna pinching for pints and waiting for my plane to Rome. Just as I was at a point of complete travel-idos I accompanied two new friends to the Prague Biennale 4. Expanded Painting: a mixed media art exhibition in a old Cesky warehouse with exhibits from artists from Central Europe as well as China, the Philipines, Mexico, Italy, and else where…

Home away from Home

Four days in my new home…Barcelona is a city constantly full of surprises. I have quickly realized that 5 weeks, even 5 months, is not long enough to exhaust the tip of the iceberg of options in this city. The maze of streets is full of – mostly beautiful – people during all hours of the day. I stumbled upon a tiny local bar in the middle of a shopping area to the east of La Rambla. The walls were decorated with Spanish plates and FCB memerobilia. The woman behind the bar served me a plate of paella for €3 – a price unheard of anywhere in Spain. The bar which had no visable sign or name has been her family´s for thirty years; her mother makes the food at home daily and brings containers to the bar to be reheated for hungry locals and random curious travelers..on the same day I ran into an Austrailian traveller that I had met in San Sebastian over a month ago, and during my afternoon wanderings, I came upon a fiesta in a popular plaça; it seemed to be a celebration of Catalunyan indepedence: there was a brass band playing for a crowd of people dancing in joined hands in a circle about 15 meters in diameter; there was another ring of dancers circling the inner one dancing in the opposite direction, and a stage was being set up on the other side of the plaça in front of dozens of locals draped in Catalunyan flags..
I came to Barcelona half-baked on a midnight crossing of the Mediterranean under a full moon…travel on the water makes you feel alive. The unhurriedness slows time down to the moment, and it romantically connects one with the nature of the water, the wind, and the sky; the cool, moist air of a sailor´s lungs is so invigorating…the Grimaldi Ferry line is more a cruise ship with decks reserved for cars and trailers trucks. It maintains a pool, gym, video game room, casino, discoteque, restaurants, and bars. My fellow passengers ranged from European truck drivers, vacationing retirees, high school tour groups, and other random sea crossers – you could easily pick out the veterans: they quickly secured the choice spots in the pullman seat room between or behind the seats or along the few rows with broken-off armrests. They constructed pallets of blankets, jackets, and towels while the rest of us were left to sleep, mildly comfortable, reclined in the seats. The 18 hour ride without a shower would have been more refreshing if the pool was open, but then again the deck was pretty chilly.

Hindsight is always 20/20

I left you in Budapest while I am now many days away in Perugia, Italy about to attempt an unpredictable 20 hour voyage across the Mediterranean… I should have stayed in Prague…
I spent another five days in Budapest: one more night of reggae at Corvinteto; discovered a public flair contest in the square in front of the Cathedral that put all of us American bartenders to shame; drank assorted flavors of Palinka – a lot of plum with my basement bartender at Instant; the rest of the NOLA crew arrived on Tuesday; we refreshed ourselves in the multi-temperature waters of the Szechanyl Baths in City Park; made new friends at Cafe Portugal; enjoyed Hungarian wines to the sounds of a Gipsy band in the Fisherman’s Bastion atop Buda Castle; and explored to dark Labyrinth beneath the hills…
Biding farewell to Budapest we took a long train ride through the Cesky countryside where mist hung low into the tree line giving off the impression that the hills were smoking. As my companions were heading home after this stop, the tendency was to push it to the limit (more on Prague later…).
I should have stayed there, or at least got a direct flight back to Barcelona. It seemed all to logical to stop along the way to visit a friend, but my unforeseen poverty has caused unintentional imposing…I saw the sights and sounds of Rome: the massive Colosseum, the ancient walls and the world’s history, but I have come to a point in travel where discovery becomes bland and everything new looks the same. Too much of everything causes a massive blur; that is why travel should be done slowly over a period of time. The three months that I have dedicated to Europe could and should be equally focused on One city…
In two hours I will take a three hour train ride to Rome’s port of Civitavecchia where I will, hopefully, board a ferry bound for Barcelona. I will probably sleep on the deck or in a Pullman seat on this 20 hour voyage as I have no funds for a cabin…see you on the other side of the Mediterranean…

Long Magyar Weekend

Sitting in Budapest with no real plan to ever leave…I arrived Friday evening, exhausted by the stress of not trying to miss my flight…went to eat the requisite goulash with two of my hostel mates. We washed it down with beer and plastic bottled wine on the bank of the Danube on Margaret Island and then moved our drinking venue to the Holdudvar club until 4am…
Saturday I spent a lazy day wandering around the streets of Pest, got a Thai massage to try and work out the kinks in my neck and shoulders, drank some Unicum and ate at the same Hungarian restaurant on Pozsonyi Ut.
We went out after midnight: seven travellers deep from the U.S., UK, and France. Saturday night seemed less busy than Friday night. We started at the colorful and eclecticly designed multi-room Instant; the design would have much more entertaining with certain chemicals, those favored by Huxley, Thompson, Leary, and Shulgin…but Instant soon closed and we were forced to roam the streets, only finding a new venue just as they were closing. We ended up at the rooftop bar of Corvinteto. The morning air was cold to me in my single layer short-sleeve shirt, so I was glad when the roof closed and we were forced to go to the lower floor to dance the a.m. away to jungle and dubstep…the sun was already shining brightly though the windows when they finally closed and forced us out. We talked to fellow clubbers on the street where a blonde Hungarian women, insisted on rubbing my hand and trying to speak Magyar with us. Her companion left and the monolingual women followed us to the tramstop, staring, smiling, and freaking everyone out. We all boarded the tram without tickets and the Hungarian woman followed. We plotted our escape from our stalker as we neared the hostel, but she got off a few stops before…
The only other hostel guests – two America girls – were hiding in the bathroom when we came in. They wondered if the police were outsided as they had just opened their cab door into an oncoming bus which squashed the door into an accordion. We quickly realized that we were alone and all awake and that the hostel staff would not be for another three hours: we quickly plugged ipods into the speakers, cracked open our last beers, and smoked by the window until one by one everyone crashed out. I was third to last, going to bed sometime around 8am…
Sunday I awoke around three pm and headed to the Palantinus Strand Baths on Margaret Island for a few hours of multi-temperature baths, water slides, wave pools, and sun. I came home, cracked out on the computer, order pizza with the girl working the desk and watched 21 before turning in.
I got up this morning and went for an exhilerating jog around Margaret Island. I ran among medieval ruins, exquisite fountains, dead pigions, and Hungarian beauties…

Budapest

Changing countries, changing currencies, changing language…not enough time in Barcelona. I originally planned on returning there in a week or so, but now it seems I may have to decide between here and there…we left Barcelona some days ago for Cadaques – one of Spain’s best secrets and the home of the genius Salvador Dali. We spent two days in the secluded Mediterranean fishing village exploring the streets, visiting Dali’s house, soaking in the fresh air, and acquiring real estate connections.
From there we headed to Paris – my third time..I was initially full of depression and self-hate for not being able to follow through with my plans to stay in the south of France: a missed opportunity, a chance to meet Sara Kali, a publication possibility…but it was too late to pitch the story, no chance to find cheap accomadation, and I am too broke to self-finance…it was not procrastination as usual but overwelment by all the other options that Europe has to offer for the prospective expatriate…

One Day Roadtrip in Spain

We were in Sevilla too quick to see much of it…made it to the highway by noon and barrelled through towards the Mediterrean. We drove passed rolling hills of olive grooves with leaf and dirt contrasts across the Spanish countryside. We stopped for lunch in Grenada with the snow covered Sierra Nevada watching over us. From there we continued on to Valencia, averting the tollroads by taking the northern route through the mountain town of Alcoi – we drove through the clouds at 620 meters where the highway is unpassable in the wintertime… We checked in or hostel in Valencia, went for a midnight dinner, and somehow ended up at New Orleans Tapas & Copas – the local owners have never even been to our little, humid city in the south of the United States. The proprietor had fun with us taking taking picture, exchanging facebook info, and giving us different chupitos (shots) of orujo – a Spanish liquor of 100 proof made from the leftover pressed grapes from wine production. We are going to see el Ciudad del Artes y Ciencias (the City of Arts and Sciences) before continuing on to Barcelona…

Back to the Beach

…in Lagos, Portugal: an awesome little seaside town in an amazing country. The past week has been a blur of excitement and sights. In Madrid we hooked up with some locals that Brandon had met on a previous trip to Europe – a friendly family of barflies whose home bar was accurately compared as “the Sneaky Pete´s of Madrid.” Long nights partying, parks and museums during the daylight…we got our car and hit the highways just before dusk last Sunday and headed for Lisbon: a great introduction to Portugal, met some cool people at the hostel, walked up and down the winding hills of streets and toured a palace and garden in Sintra with secret dark caves, underground grottos, and a 57m Initiation Well…we took back roads at night to get to Lagos and just missed hitting a pack of fox cubs; a bright flash of light in the sky was seen differently by all four people in the car…we got to Lagos, slept in the car, ate awesome crepes at the hostel, relaxed on the beach, took a boat tour of the grotto caves, ate tasty food, drank losts of shots and filled nine people in a smoke filled car while three police officer searched for something on the street. Leaving now for Sevilla, Spain…