Interlude - The Journey

Nine hour flight from Seattle. Connecting now in Amsterdam. Their airport is called Schiphol, which looks too much like "Ship hole" to mean anything else. With all the extra vowels, Dutch always looks like it's meant to be yawned rather than spoken.

They kept us pretty busy on the flight with free movies and a planewide sudoku contest. Constant free sandwiches. Folks watched Iron Man 3, cheeks bulging with cheese. Folks entered numbers into squares with one hand and squeezed packets of mayonnaise onto pickles with the other. I murdered a stack of New Yorkers and started Utz (Bruce Chatwin).

On my last extended trip, I didn't want to be weighed down with books, but I dearly needed something to read. Back then, I would never have thrown a book away, so anything I had with me would have been lugged around as dead weight for three months. So... my girlfriend photocopied a million short stories for me, and had them delivered one of the hostels.

I read them on trains and ships and threw them away. It was a wonderfully random collection of famous stories, contemporary stories, and chapters from books. She illustrated some of the pages. Those I kept.

When they ran out, I would go to used bookstores in whichever country I was in and ask if they had any books in English. They almost always had a shoe box with two or three busted paperbacks. Almost always "sleaze" or children's classics. That's when I first read Call of the Wild.

I didn't buy the porn, but I regret it now. I'm sure they were hilarious, rare collectibles.

For this trip, I brought an entire backpack full of books, but I'll be giving them to used bookstores when I'm done, so someone like Young Simon will have something when they run out of photocopied stories

Sat next to a friendly Aussie on the plane. He slept healthily most of the time. I may have slept, but as usual, I dreamed I was on a plane, so it's hard to know. Here in the Ship Hole, I can't tell if I'm exhausted or excited.

Boarding another plane now for Budapest.  Two hours. I'm staying in a room I booked on airbnb, and I sprangsprung for a car to pick me up. The note I got from my landlord says:

"The driver will be waiting for you at the airport and showing a paper with your name on it. Then my friend Glória will greet you at the apartment around 17:50"

I've been singing Glória like it's pronounced Glue-rea and saying "I think she's got your room key, Glue-rea" and cracking myself up. I'm a dime store Laura Branigan.

Loved seeing all the European faces and clothes as I transferred to the new gate for this connecting flight. Fierce brows and proud expressions. Boys with perms. All the women look like German film stars.

There's a little bodega called V!ZZ!T, and that is making me laugh too. The ! is what they use in writing to represent the "click" sound they use in those clicking languages. It's a supply store for cicadas.
One more flight, and I'll be there.