The Most Popular 5th Grader Ever

We played our last show of the tour in Traverse City, MI on 11/22. Brian made fun of me because I pronounced it "tra-VERSE," like any reasonable person would. It's actually pronounced "TRA-vers." Shame on me. If you ever want to win money on a bet for how to pronounce the name of a town, bet on Regina, Saskatchewan. Your opponent will undoubtedly say "Ra-JEE-na," like any reasonable person would. You will say, "No, actually it rhymes with 'vagina.'" Then you will pocket your winnings and be on your merry way.

Chicago seems like a swell place and served to be another stop on the "Seeing Friends Who I Haven't Seen In A Long Time Who Are Indeed Still Awesome" tour. High fives all around.

After driving back to the folks' home in Sanford, NC, I've had some time to sleep, eat, and do weird things like pay bills and keep up with my fantasy football team.

It's also given me time to clean out my room.

I got a little misty-eyed when I found a banner that my 5th grade class had made for me in Mare Island, CA. ("In" Mare Island? "On" Mare Island? Goodness.) I left elementary school there in the middle of the year when my family had to move back to northern Virginia. It was a 4th/5th/6th grade combination class, so I had been with the same kids and teacher for a year and a half. The kids (and presumably Mrs. Goldwyn) had made a large banner that said, "Adios Ricardo! Buena Suerte From Room 1." I have no idea why it was written in Spanish. All the students had signed it.

There were some real gems on there -- "Have Fun In WASHINGTO". "Have Fun A Washington!" and my favorite, "Gee I guess I'll miss you (NOT...)"

The last one came from my still-close-friend Matt Williams. Who, coincidentally, I will be spending this weekend with as we go see the Army/Navy football game in Philadelphia. I think I will have to ask him why he made the curious choice of an ellipsis to end the barb.

Then I looked in the corner of the banner and saw three small letters. At first, I thought the letters were a crossover from another piece of art that had been made on the neighboring sheets of printer paper. Then I looked closer.

Someone had written, "Die" on my going away banner in 5th grade. Just "Die". No name-calling, exclamation point, or even an ellipsis.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and was curious to know who had done such a thing. After some gritty investigative work, I discovered the perpetrator to be none other than Mike Labougan. Or Laboogan. He and Jeff Jaro were the only two kids to sign the poster with green ink, and Jeff Jaro was probably the nicest kid in the class. Another damning piece of evidence, albeit anecdotal, was a time in school when Mike had dropped his chewing gum on the playground, picked it up again and put it back into his mouth, encrusted with all kinds of disgusting dirt and pebbles. Mike laughed and said, "Mmmmmm. Rocks and minerals."

Since Mike was completely insane, was a pretty good friend of mine, and ate shit-covered chewing gum, I won't take the "Die" too seriously. But maybe my hindsight upon my 5th grade popularity is warped.

After I write this, I will travel to Facebook on a search for Mike Laboogan. I wonder where he is, and if he still eats disgusting things off the ground. Hopefully I will find him on Facebook. I will try to befriend him. He won't remember me, probably because I didn't do disgustingly memorable things. I certainly won't write "Die" on his wall.

96 Grams Of Awesome

I think we've played in Little Rock, Arkansas at the Whitewater Tavern probably four times in the past year. It's got everything one could ever want in a bar: really cheap booze, really good food, really absurd decorations (a real canoe hanging from the ceiling, a poster-sized photo of a naked man playing an accordian), really wacky regular patrons (overheard: "A corndog! None of those fuckers got me in 'Nam, but I come home and almost die on a corndog!! A corndog!!!), and free wireless internet.

The bar is managed by an extremely nice guy named Matt, who lets us sleep at his house whenever we are in town. His roommates include "Sweet" Jane (a bartender at Whitewater), and Michael.

Michael and I were in a coffee shop on Tuesday when he revealed that he had to be at work at 9am the next morning for a meeting with his bosses at U.S. Pizza, a restaurant in town.

"I'm kind of worried. I really don't know if they're going to fire me or promote me."

Why would they fire you?

"Well, a couple reasons. They told me to take off the Obama button I was wearing, and I told them 'That's fucking ridiculous,' and it happened to be in front of a customer. Then I made a little sign."

A sign? What?

"Well, there's this big flat screen TV in our dining room, and there's a camera in the restaurant's arcade. So the TV just shows the arcade, so parents in the dining room can watch their kids while the kids are playing in the arcade."

Ok.

"And it's total bullshit because the house dressing that we serve has 96 grams of fat in a 6-ounce serving. So everyone thinks they're being healthy, when they're really just getting heart disease."

Ok.

"So I made a sign that just had the facts. 'Our house dressing has 96 grams of fat in a 6-ounce serving.' And I hung it up in the arcade so that the TV in the dining room showed the sign all day."

The next morning, in the pouring rain, I drove Michael to his meeting. They handed Michael a write-up of his offenses ("Michael was wearing a button that a guest found offensive. Michael said 'FUCK' in front of guest") and fired him. They asked him why he made the sign. He told them that "people have a right to be informed." They then asked him to put his signature on the paper. Michael responded, "Well, I will sign this, but can I please record the fact that what I actually said was 'This is fucking ridiculous.' ? We live in a postmodern society where the truth is important."

All of this lifted Michael to heroic status among me and all of our friends in Little Rock. But the best part by far was that Michael spent the rest of the day making jokes about his new unemployed status. "Hey Michael, do you want to go get lunch with us?" I just got fired, and you want to talk about lunch??? Really?? Lunch?? I've just been fired. ......."Hey Michael, did you listen to that Arcade Fire album?" I've just been fired from my job and you want to talk about the Arcade Fire?? Really?? I can't discuss music right now. ........."Michael, have you thought about trying to collect unemployment pay?" Seriously?? A man gets fired today, and you want to ask him whether or not he's going to collect unemployment? You dick, have some god-damned sympathy.

Michael rules. The only question I have is what made him think that the meeting could possibly have been about him getting promoted, but I guess I can ask him in January when we go back to Little Rock.

Tex Message

"Tex Message." Oh man, that's golden. I think the inspiration was a girl near me who just said "I totally include a smiley face in all my text messages."

Tonight we played at a coffee house near Dallas called The White Rhino. All I could think about was our video tech project in high school where Andrew Kilpatrick, Conor, and Peter made a fake commercial for heroin called "White Tiger."

The only two guys at the show tonight who were not in high school were Harley Davidson employees. One of them had been hit by a car while riding his motorcycle TODAY. "Dear God, are you alright? Why are you even out of the house?" "Well," he said, "my helmet worked. I only had a mild concussion.....I think....I was unconscious for a while, so I'm not sure. It happens." Instant new hero. He even put money into our tip jar.

Last night's show was in College Station, TX. Quite a wide array of characters made it out to that one, too. Including a man who now spends much of his days organizing free meals for all the patrons of the bar. He just buys a bunch of food, and makes it outside on the porch, and gives it to people at the bar. Kristy and Casey thought that was a wondrous idea until I pointed out that maybe there were better candidates for free hot meals than the drunken patrons of the Revolution Bar and Cafe. The man was pretty cool though....wearing socks (but no shoes) and jeans with a GIGANTIC hole in the ass.

I ended up spending most of the night (after our show) speaking with Rudy, a big Mexican guy living in College Station who loves Sonic Youth, Pavement, and loads of other bands that my friends in college adored, but that I couldn't stand. "Listen man, you need to buy Daydream Nation and get into it," he told me. "Study it. It's amazing. Then, a couple years later, get this other album they released called -- "
"Wait a second," I interrupted. "It's going to take me two years to grasp this album??"
"Yeah man, it's really intense. It's some insane shit."
"But TWO YEARS??? If I've been listening to it for, let's say 14 months, and I still am not into it, you think I need to invest another 10 months of my life trying to grasp this Sonic Youth album?"
"Well....yeah man, I guess you may not dig it."

The D-est Of The Big D's

Casey just said to me, "Last time we were in Dallas, I figured it would be the only time I was ever there in my life. Now we're here, and it's a week later." Casey always exaggerates though, it was about three weeks ago, I think. I don't even know.

We're back at the Opening Bell in downtown Dallas. We played this afternoon outside in a park. Well, kind of a park, more like an intersection in a nice neighborhood called Highland Park. People were jogging/rollerblading/strolling by. It was hard not to laugh at some people, including an older gentleman walking his dog while wearing a shirt that said "FBI: Female Body Investigator."

Our best friend from yesterday was Barry, a fine man we met at a bar in Jackson, MI. He relayed to Casey and me an amazing story about how he recently found out that he has a five-year old daughter. Five years ago, he was dating a woman, and they broke up. He "thought she may be pregnant," but wasn't totally sure. He started dating another woman. That woman passed away. Right after she passed away, he found his ex-girlfriend (the possibly pregnant one) on Myspace. She wrote him a message on Myspace that said she needed to talk to him. When he called her, she said that she had had his child five years ago, and that she'd been writing him letters for the last five years. "I guess the girlfriend that just died had been hiding the letters."

He is now happily together with the mother of his child.

Barry is awesome. He was drinking Sparks energy drink and smoking cigarettes non-stop. He was the sanest crazy man at the bar that I could ever imagine. As Casey and I drove off, Casey asked me if I heard Barry say that he used to play bass in a Doors cover band. Casey giggled, then added, "Which is totally awesome because the Doors didn't have a bassist."

In The 3-est of D's

One of the first CD's I ever purchased was U2's Achtung Baby. It may have been number two, behind Bryan Adams's Waking Up The Neighbours. I still think it's one of the best albums ever made. (Achtung Baby, that is. Definitely not WUPTN....which is still fairly awesome anyway.) Soon after, I bought Zooropa, which is less good, but anything that contains "Lemon" can't be that bad. We used to put that song on in high school video technology class every single day.


I hadn't obtained another note of U2's music until last year, when I made the incredibly ridiculous late-night (VERY late-night) purchase of the entire U2 catalog on iTunes. I distinctly remember laying in bed the next morning (or afternoon) and thinking, "No....please no.....please say that was a dream," until I turned on my computer and, Yep! I had downloaded 478 songs by U2.


Anyway, I ended up loving almost all of it. And yesterday I went to see the U2 3D movie for the second time. Sitting in the theater by myself, I reveled in the fact that seeing an IMAX movie by myself at 5:30pm on a Wednesday is the kind of experience that desk jobs were meant to destroy.


The second time through U2 3D I didn't cry nearly as much as the first time, which doesn't make too much sense, because there's not a better situation for crying than sitting by yourself wearing 3D glasses in an empty theater on a weekday. Well, I guess doing that on a weekend would be more perfect. But still, I should've cried more.



I'm still waiting to get pics back from the last jaunt of touring. This was taken by friends of mine in Atlanta, who I met this past summer in Cinque Terre, Italy. In this past month, our band has stayed with two groups of people that I met in Italy this summer. Totally rad.


The picture is from Eddie's Attic, a super cool listening room in Atlanta. Last time we played there in March, Eddie let me drink Stella Artois out of the giant Budman beer mug. This time I didn't have to beg as much for the mug, but made the wise decision of filling it with Diet Coke instead of beer. I think the show benefited in consequence.


Kristy still owes me many pictures from the spring trip to Eddie's and ones from this past trip. If I ever get those from her, they will make a fine blog entry.

Another Month Without Beds

Well, that's kind of a lie. There were a few nights that included beds.

The Kristy Kruger band drove to Grand Rapids, MI on 9/22 to meet up with our new boss, Brian Vander Ark. Brian is/was the lead singer of The Verve Pipe, a band who had a hit in the 90s with "The Freshmen".

Brian and his family are about as cool as they come. Dylan (guitar) and I slept in an Airstream trailer parked in his yard. Despite the fact that it was decked out with a flatscreen TV and other indulgences, I still felt like Randy Quaid from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. There were an embarrassingly high number of "Shitter's full" jokes made.

After days of rehearsing, our first show was in Detroit at a club that holds about 500 people. When Brian told us that it would probably sell out, I giggled. When we showed up for the show and it was packed two hours before showtime, I stopped giggling.

We played a bunch of shows with Brian, and played shows without him to fill in the gaps in the dates. NYC, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Richmond, Charlottesville, Dallas, Birmingham, Charlotte, Augusta, Atlanta.....I think I'm leaving some out.

One of the coolest places we played was a house in North Augusta, South Carolina. Chuck and Heather are both schoolteachers that have turned their basement into an honest-to-goodness nice theater. It holds 100 people, and four times each year, Chuck invites his email list of friends/music fans over for a show. He makes t-shirts, laminated passes and all other kinds of neat stuff to commemorate the show. It's BYOB, but he sets up an enormous cooler of ice and a pile of buckets so you can keep your B cold during the show. It was quite a pleasant way to spend an evening. As his neighbor/friend told me: "Everybody's got to have a hobby, and Chuck took just about the coolest fucking hobby you could ever have."

This trek lasted about a month, and the highlight of the trip may have been meeting new spouses of my friends. That was made even more fun after having this conversation with Brian's wife.

Richard, do you have a girlfriend?

No.

Why not?

Well, currently I'm sleeping in your front yard in a trailer. Over the next month, I'll probably sleep in a bed....well, probably 6-8 nights. The highlight of any given day could honestly be when we stop at a gas station that sells corn dogs. These things don't scream, "Date me."

I see.

Because of exhaustion and the fact that Kristy takes an incredibly large amount of pictures, I didn't take many pictures this trip. This was the best:

If it hadn't been 4am, we definitely would've gone inside to see if their boasting could've been true.

Okay, A Few More

Ba-doom ching!

I wonder if the camels are bored of the view by now

And More

Nada, me, Linda (our wonderful host)

Sunset on Nile

I Took Many Pictures In Egypt

Temple of Karnak. Columns were unbelievably big.

Nada at Karnak
Man who made a gun out of cardboard, Karnak

Desert Desert

Oldest stone building in the world: Step pyramid of King Djoser
Palest arms in the world: Richard Hewett

Great camels of Giza

Rachel's camel bit mine

View of Garbage City from Coptic Cave Churches, Cairo

More Pictures

Seriously, if loving turkey-flavored chips is wrong, then I don't want to be right.

Entrance to Luxor Temple

After Samir told me to stop asking so many questions, I told him that in America we would settle this dispute with a dance-off. In slippers.

Pictures

Me with our tour guide Samir. At Saqqara. Before he asked me to stop asking so many questions.

If I had known they sold turkey-flavored potato chips in Egypt, I would not have waited so long to visit.

The man driving the tractor we were riding on to Hatshepsut's Temple

Hatshepsut's Temple

Cairo Pics

A typical bus in Cairo.

A typical Cairene kid working under a typical car on a typical street in Cairo.

Me and a man who showed us around a mosque in Cairo (from left to right).

A guy on the street who really wanted to be in a picture.

The Train Station In Luxor

(This picture is not actually the train station in Luxor, but you get the idea.)

I think the people of Egypt could not be any nicer.

My friend Nada and I got in the good habit of telling people that we were married so as to cause fewer problems. One man at the train platform was not deterred. He asked if we had any children. When I told him no, he offered to give me his wife and four children, in exchange for Nada. "Then, very soon, we will all have children! Because **I** have no problems." I couldn't tell if he was kidding or not. And then I thought of the two German girls laughing at my sausage-eating stick, and rued the fact that my genitalia had been mocked on two continents in the last two weeks.

When a train pulled up to the platform, a group of four Egyptian women were in the car directly in front of us. This was not our train, so we stood there and watched all the commotion around us. The women in the car smiled at me and waved. I waved back. That made them giggle uncontrollably. I think it was four generations of women from one family. I had no idea what to do next. I asked Nada if blowing them a kiss would be wildly inappropriate. She said yes. The train stayed at the station for at least 20 minutes, so it took every ounce of self-restraint to not go ahead and do it. Since Nada nixed the kiss, I thought about offering them some of my vanilla wafers, but I didn't think that would be as fun. Or as illegal and deserving of the death penalty.

The kids next to me, however, did receive some vanilla wafers.

Another man offered five million camels for Nada.

Suddenly, a giant hacksaw fell out of the luggage of a man walking down the platform. He looked around for a second, then calmly wrapped it back up into his luggage (which was a sheet wrapped around his saw....and who knew what else). Nada and I discussed how this was quite interesting, since at the front gate they had airport-like security. We were waved through without a bag-check, but all of the locals (like Sawman) were being checked. How did his saw get through? If they didn't mind a gigantic hacksaw on the train, what exactly were they looking for? A cannon? Plutonium? A lightsaber?

As I am about to click on "Publish Post," I think of a phone conversation I had with my mother today which included her saying, "Many of my friends read your blog, you have no idea." If you are a friend of my mother's and are reading this, I apologize for using the word "genitalia." I promise that this is not a reflection on her parenting skills. She is worth many more camels than a woman whose son nonchalantly tosses around words like "genitalia."

Goodbye Very Much

I arrived to Cairo at 3am on Saturday morning. The wonder has not ceased since. We are staying with Linda and Pressley Wicker, who are friends of one of our family's friends.

My friend Nada got in yesterday, and I was trying to explain to her how I feel like we are inside a giant bubble in the Wickers' apartment, and outside is a kind of magical wild chaotic zoo of amazement.

The Wickers live in a neighborhood called Maadi, which is on the Nile River, just south of the center of the city. But "the city" contains a population of 20 million people, so it's difficult to tell where it begins and ends.

Driving in Egypt is kind of a do-it-yourself adventure. There are few lines in the road, and where they exist, they are not followed. People just honk liberally, as if that absolves them of any wrongdoing. "Beep beep -- I'm coming, you better watch out," seems to be the prevailing attitude. If there is a car to the driver's left, and a car to the right, and neither is going fast enough, then the driver creates a lane in the middle, gives a couple honks, and drives through. Families crossing the road, donkeys hauling food, minibusses traveling the wrong way on the highway -- all can be hindrances.

The streets are lined with immense amounts of trash. Everywhere. Towering buildings surround the highways and streets, and as Linda says, "It looks like bombs have been dropped all over the city." But the reason for this is simple -- when Egyptian landowners build high-rises on their property, they don't have to pay city taxes on the land until the construction is FINISHED. So they figured out that if they leave the buliding unfinished, and start housing tenants anyway, they can collect rent from the tenants without paying city taxes.

My friend Greg loves having fun with new people. Especially new people who he doesn't know, and a trip to Mexico made it clear that he especially loves having fun with ones who don't speak English. Greg would not be able to contain himself in Cairo. Down every street corner I turn, at every stop light the taxi stops, people want to talk to me. People yell, "Welcome to my country!!!" People scream, "Hello!!! How are you?? What is your name??" from across the road. People invariably smile and wave whenever eye contact is made. It is remarkable. For about six city blocks, a truckdriver stayed along side our taxi last night, just so he could keep waving and giving the thumbs up to us whenever we came to a stop.

I have been offered mint tea from shopowners, cigarettes from taxi drivers, bags of bagel chips from perfume salesmen, and complete chicken/vegetable/potato dinners from store-owners whose shops I have wandered into.

Linda took me on a walk through her neighborhood yesterday. We stopped at a butcher shop with crates of ducks and chickens. Two local women were seated, haggling with the owner about how much to pay for a large duck. I told Linda I would love to see how they killed it. The woman told Linda that they were haggling over the price, but it would probably be killed soon. As chaos whirled all around us, everyone within earshot laughed at my curiosity.

The owner of the shop picked up the duck behind its wings and pretended to toss it to me, then asked me if I wanted to hold it. I said thanks, but no thanks. Finally they finished the job, laughing at my shock/horror the whole time. Thank goodness it wasn't a chicken, or I would never be able to visit Chik-Fil-A again.

Then we walked to the bakery. Piping hot loaves of bread were pouring out of the oven, so we walked past the front counter of the bakery to go watch. The men tending the oven were excited to see us, so they asked us what we'd like. I gave one of the men an Egyptian pound (about 18 American cents) and said that we'd just like to try the bread. He looked at the coin for a while, then said "Hmmm....20." Linda said, "No, no no, we just want to try the bread...20 pounds? Won't one pound get us a taste?" He said, "Hmmmm.....No. Twenty." We shook our heads again and said, "No, please we just want a sample." After paying $3 for cab rides all over the city, a loaf of bread couldn't cost a whole pound. A crowd had gathered around us at this point.

Then the man started scooping up loaves of bread and placing them on the window in front of us. Linda and I both realized we had just purchased 20 LOAVES of bread for the one Egyptian pound. We scooped up a few, handed the rest to the onlookers, then left. Everyone was waving and saying goodbye, welcoming us to their country and hoping we'd come back.

Linda went home and I wandered the streets some more. "Hello!!!!", "Welcome!!!!" and "What is your name!!!" rained down from all over.

I passed two young kids on the street who both giggled at me. "What is your name??" one said. My name is Richard, what is your name? Between bursts of laugher, one said "Mohammed." I asked the same question to his friend. "Mohammed," he replied. "Well Mohammed. Nice to meet you. And you Mohammed, nice to meet you too." I asked them what they were doing this afternoon. They said "Yes, Cairo, we live in Cairo." I said, no no -- are you all playing today? Do you have school? "No no, we love to play PlayStation," and pointed inside. We all laughed and I told them to have fun. They smiled and said, "You have fun too!!"

I told them goodbye and started to walk down the street, they waved and said "Goodbye!!!!" I walked about 10 yards and heard "Goodbye!!!!" and turned around to see them waving and smiling. I waved and yelled back, "Goodbye!!" After another ten yards, I heard the same thing, and I turned and yelled back. This happened about six times as I walked almost two blocks. Finally, they both yelled "GOODBYE VERY MUCH!!!!" and I turned around to see them waving enthusiastically, about two crowded city blocks away. I jumped up and waved, and shouted "'GOODBYE VERY MUCH!!!!!"

Viva La Polska

"What do you think the turnover rate is for tour guides at the Auschwitz concentration camp?" Ben asked me.

I had just found my American drinking partners for the evening in Wroclaw, Poland.

"No, seriously -- how long do you think you could last there as a tour guide?"

Ben had known me for about 15 seconds, and what Ben didn't understand was that I would take the question very seriously. He, his friend Dan, and I discussed the question at length. Ben had just been to visit Auschwitz. "There's a Radisson like right across the street. And how could you ever say, 'I live in Auschwitz?' What the hell?" (Please click on that link, the headline is incredible.)

My main question was whether or not the Auschwitz tour guides acted like a person at any other job -- started to loosen up after a couple months and crack jokes. You know, mess around with other employees.

We settled on probably six months as the longest you could make it, but our conversation was interrupted by a bachelor party group from London. It included the groom-to-be wearing a Speedo and a cape, and a really short guy who kept laughing hysterically to himself, eyes closed. We bought them drinks. Then left for a club.

Ben is fearless. After explaining to me how he had been in Kosovo before arriving in Poland, he found the biggest group of Polish girls in the club and sat down right in the middle. I ended up talking to one who told me that her father is "Very involved in the city politics, I don't know how you say -- he's very important." She also told me much about her German boyfriend of four years. And how they live together.

Soon after, she asked me if we were going to another club after this one. She suggested that she show me "some good clubs, the best in Wroclaw." But alas, I was prepared for this little trick.

Two nights previously, in Poznan, a girl had asked to "show me the best bars in Poznan." I declined, citing the muscular, shaved-headed, Polish gentleman with his arms around her who was kissing her ear. "Him?" she said, "I don't like him." After I told her that he probably liked her and that I'd pass on the invitation, she insisted. Before I could respond, the gentleman placed his arm on the bar and yelled something in Polish. "He wants to armwrestle you," she said. "And I would like to leave," I said. She laughed and told me that she would come with me. "Uhh, I don't think that's the best idea. I appreciate the offer, but goodbye."

She again insisted. I told her that I needed to use the bathroom, to buy some time and try to figure out how to get out of this situation.

I had nothing.

She cornered me as I exited the restroom, asking if I was ready to leave. I told her that I should probably just be going -- then her male friend decided to grab my arms and place me against the wall. And shout at me, in Polish. She yelled at him, then insisted that she would still like to show me around Poznan. I waited for him to finally ease up a bit...then I sprinted up the stairs, out of the bar, and down the street as quickly as possible, screaming "No thank you!" over my back.

So back to Wroclaw.......so the mayor's daughter asks me to hang out with her, despite her live-in German boyfriend of four years. I had learned my lesson in Poznan. I said a couple of indistinguishable words in English, then ran out of the bar, as fast as I could.

The next day, outside I noticed a lot of drunk burly men wearing scarves and shirts of ridiculous colors. I had learned that in Europe, this means a soccer game is being played somewhere in town. I jumped into the nearest internet cafe and tried to find out as much as I could about the Wroclaw team. Deciphering Polish to the best of my ability, I reasoned that they were playing tonight at 8pm in a stadium about 1.5 miles from where I was. Sounded like a fine walk to me.

I found the nearest drunk burly Pole with an electric green scarf around his neck and asked him to confirm what I had learned. He said, "Yes! There is very big match tonight. VERY big. Biggest in years here. But no tickets left, tickets are all sold."

I thanked him and tried to figure out a decent place to watch the game on TV. Ah, screw it, I thought. I don't have anything better to do. I started walking down to the stadium.

Not knowing exactly where it was, I followed the smell of booze and the radiance of electric green. And the swarm of armored police vehicles.

Forty-five minutes later, I was outside the Wroclaw soccer stadium, wondering if Polish people would understand the phrase "ticket scalpers."

I heard a man on his cell phone speaking English. When he hung up, I asked if he thought there would be scalpers selling tickets. He looked puzzled. "Uh, I think you just buy your tickets here at the gate, mate." Plenty of tickets left.

He was fine with me tagging along. We waited for his two friends to arrive, then we got in line to buy tickets.

My newly acquired soccer-watching crew consisted of two British guys and an American who all had been living in Wroclaw for 4-5 years. All of them taught advanced conversational English.

A gigantic water cannon rolled by, distracting everyone's attention.

We sat in a section directly behind the goal. All three guys explained to me that their students had warned them to never, ever go to a soccer game in Wroclaw because it's really dangerous. We discussed the debate that takes place in the presence of countless policemen and a water cannon -- "Am I safe because there IS so much security around? Or am I unsafe because they NEED so much security around?"

The Wroclaw team had advanced to the top Polish league for the first time in the last seven years. This was their first game of the season. The stadium looked like the average American high school football stadium....and was not even full. They explained that the concept of "advance ticket sales" hadn't really caught on here yet, and people don't really feel safe coming to the games. They also told me that the first two weeks of the season had been postponed due to a bribery scandal involving almost every single referee in the league. And that Poland's president is a former child actor. And that Poland's former prime minister who just left office was the president's identical twin, and also a former child actor.

I turned the conversation to more jovial matters. English Matt was engaged to one of his previous students. American Matt was married to one of his previous students. "Rob, what's taking you so long? Hee hee," I joked. He didn't look pleased. "Actually mate, I'm divorced from one of my students."

I went down to the concession stand. And bought a sausage that was bigger than my arm.

Hoping that Rob had forgotten my marriage remark, I asked English Matt more about his engagement. Yes, she was a student. Yes, he had been teaching her. Yes, she was from Poland. "If you can believe it or not, she's actually from Auschwitz. Isn't that crazy?" My head almost exploded. I probably spit out a piece of gigantic sausage.

"Yeah, and it's really funny -- I would never ever want to live there. Like can you imagine living there? What the hell? But I went to meet her family a few months ago, and they were trying to convince us to move down there. I told them that there were no jobs for English speakers, but they said no no no, that wasn't true. They told me that they're always looking to hire people at the concentration camp."

I Can't Even Pronounce It

My uncle and I just returned from the annual festival that takes place in Hannover around the large lake in the middle of town.

He and I were standing there, drinking a beer and discussing why it had been difficult to talk to German girls, and how they hadn't really been interested in talking much with me. The two cute German girls next to us seemed to notice.

Later, when Mark came back with potato pancakes for me and him, we didn't have any forks. I went to the booth nearby, and could only find two toothpick-like forks, but they seemed to work fine.

The girls laughed, then said something to us in German.

Me: I think they just made fun of us.
Mark: Yeah, they just told you that you had a very small stick.

And so it goes.

That wasn't even the silliest interaction of the day with a German female.

A middle-aged German woman literally yelled at me while in line for train tickets, because she was convinced there was an open ticket counter among the long row of ticket counters and that I wasn't heading for it. YELLED.

I didn't think there was one open in the direction she was pointing, but I walked down there anyway....and it was closed. She continued to yell at me. People were laughing (at her? at me? at life? I hoped at her). Finally, I just stood there, scanning for another open ticket counter, until one came open. On my way to it, I had to pass the yelling woman again. She yelled something else at me, even though it was clear to me, the train company, and every single other person in line that she had been wrong. Maybe she was yelling an apology as I walked past. Or maybe it was "Your stick is very small!!!"

It was confusing. And a little scary.

I've spent the last few days in Germany reading The Golden Compass and hanging out with my 10 year old cousin Reid. Some of that time has been spent watching a cartoon called Chowder . It is the weirdest cartoon ever. Reid gets mad because I have been singing to him "Chowder's not your boyfriend, Chowder's not your boyfriend." But he's not mad that he's not Chowder's boyfriend, he's mad because I'm getting the words to the song wrong. I have no idea what the real words are, I just know they involve "Chowder" and "boyfriend."

Speaking of fantastic songs that Reid loves, a major watershed moment in male Hewett bonding was when Reid felt comfortable enough around me to belt this one out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be6jlCuMvVQ

Tomorrow I head to Poland. To Poznan, Poland. Then on to Wroclaw, Poland.

Today, before buying my train ticket to Wroclaw, I realized that I had absolutely no idea how to pronounce "Wroclaw." Matters are complicated by the slash through the "L" in the word. According to someone on Tripadvisor.com, the town is pronounced:
Vro-tz-wav - Wrocław.

There it is, the little slash in the "L". Good times.

Pearl Jam Unites The World

My uncle told me that at the Hannover airport, there are numerous booths advertising all-inclusive "last-minute" travel deals. He had wanted to find out more and I had a lot of time, so I decided to pack my bag, take the tram to the airport and see where I would end up that night. After being in so many big cities, I was hoping to get to a beach. Visions of Greek islands, the Portuguese coastline, and out of control Turkish soccer fans danced through my head.

At the airport, there were probably 15 different booths advertising these travel packages. There were four star hotels in Istanbul for one week at a cost of 400 euros, flight included. All kinds of trips to the Greek islands. As my heartrate increased, I neared the counter, wondering why I was one of only three people at ANY of the booths. I had a flashback to FerryGate 2k8, and figured that maybe I had to be in an automobile ("but anyone's automobile!") in order to board the plane.

Well, the two polite German gentlemen were shocked when I put my backpack on the floor and asked if they could get me to Greece. "Today??!!!" Yes, I said, today. "You mean right now?" Yes. "This is not possible."

I asked how quickly they could get me somewhere fun. They told me that they could give me a package to Portugal.....in about a month. All the packages sell out well in advance.

They spoke solid English, so I figured I'd make the obvious "Well that's not very last minute!" joke. I guess no one had dropped that comedic atom bomb before, because they laughed, heartily. "This is true. I guess we should call it 'last month travel!!!"

I told them that since they couldn't fly me anywhere today, they should recommend somewhere for me to go on the train. Today.

We settled on Salzburg, Austria.

Ten hours later, I was departing my hostel in Salzburg in search of a good bar. I found one along the river. I also found a marvelous drinking companion, an Austrian named Christian.

Christian bears an uncanny resemblance to my good friend Derek. In appearance, mannerisms, and lovably exasperated demeanor.

Christian sells "very expensive history books. I don't know how you say it in English, but I sell history books for thousands of dollars." Antique books, like very very old books? "No, they are not old, but they are very good. So they cost thousands of dollars." I don't think he was pulling my leg, but who knows.

Then Christian and I came upon the topic which would entertain us for the rest of the evening: Pearl Jam.

I love Pearl Jam. Christian LOVES Pearl Jam. Not in the "Pearl Jam is cool, I can't believe people forget that they're still around!" kind of way, but more of the "Pearl Jam releases all of their concerts on CD and I buy every possible one" kind of way. We quickly progressed from discussing Pearl Jam albums to Pearl Jam songs to Pearl jam b-sides to Pearl Jam tours to specific Pearl Jam concerts in 2000.....we enthusiastically celebrated our Pearl Jam geekness. I think we were both shocked to find another human (in a random bar) who spoke a different language, but who vehemently agreed that No Code is an underappreciated masterpiece.

The real fireworks began when he asked me what I thought of "I Got Id" (a song that was never even released on a proper Pearl Jam album). I told him I knew it, but couldn't think of how it went. Christian immediately did one of the loudest, best Eddie Vedder impersonations since Adam Sandler on Saturday Night Live. It was tremendous. He took it seriously. Very very seriously.

Then he leaned over to me - "Listen. We finish our beer here, then we leave for another bar. Which Pearl Jam song will we sing on the way?" I laughed and said sure, I was ready to go. "But which song will we sing?" I laughed again, but then realized he wasn't kidding -- I was in charge of picking a song to sing. I laughed again.

He downed his beer, we stood up, and outside he asked again which song I would pick. More nervous laughter from me. Finally, I muttered, "Uhhh, how about 'Smile'" ?

Again, without any hesitation, Christian let loose in the middle of the street -- "Don't it make you smile!! Don't it MAKE you smile!!!........I missssssss you alreadyyyyyyyy!!! I miss you alreadyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!"

Over the three days in Salzburg, I saw the Cathedral orchestra perform an evening of Mozart's music in the cathedral; an amazing classical quartet blazing through tunes in the main square; and numerous accordians and water-glass-rubbing street musicians. And not a single one of them came close to Christian's serenade.

And A Few More

People frantically trying to take a picture of the Mona Lisa. I wonder if they're aware that you can just Google it.

Urinal in Amsterdam. On the street.

More Welsh!

Wales is pretty

Boat's eye view of Amsterdam

Wales

I just returned from another trip to the UK to visit Alex. I met up with him at his flat in London, then we drove all over Britain and Wales.

Our trusty British steed. Alex's VW convertible

Just two dudes in Wales

Just a dude chasing sheep in Wales.

I didn't know that Wales has its own language. It has very few vowels, but many Y's, F's, and D's. "Recycling centre" is English for "Canolfan ailgylchu."

I Realized....

....that there were not really any pictures from London or Berlin in that group. But we went there. And I guess I didn't take many pictures. Or many pictures that were as funny as Ann with a group of tuxedo-ed Germans.

We, however, did visit those places.

London, Paris, Berlin, Hannover

For the first two weeks of July, Sanford native and fearless French interpreter Ann came to hit the highest of European highlights, including the Eiffel Tower, the Paris sewer system, and the Hannover summer festival. Only the high high highlights.

Rainbow from the Eiffel Tower

Ann at Hannover summer festival with German guys

Ann at Hannover summer festival with German beer with raspberries in it

No German festival is complete without a zany painting of Don King