Paris Syndrome

For posterity's sake, as well as the likely CDC investigation, Paris was where Jordan contracted the consumption.

As best as I can tell, he got it from Guillermo, our Mexican roommate, who was constantly packing in a frenzied, sweating panic.  Wheezing and coughing violently, he would breathily stuff his bags for a minute, pause, hold his bags to weigh them, and say, "Shit!  Fuck!"

So now Jordan has been coughing continuously for 5 days.  I do not know if he will pull through.

He will be remembered mostly as a true patriot...

Also in Paris, I made the worst purchase of the trip (besides, perhaps, Jordan's Texas Nacho Freedom Fiesta Burger from McDonald's), getting THE MOST TERRIBLE sunscreen ever.  In spite of my violent scrubbing, it will not absorb into my skin, and collects and flakes in my grody traveler's 'stache, making me look like a pallid, streakily-powdered Versailles madame who just snorted a tall pile of coke.

After seeing Notre Dame, the first bonafide bathroom emergency of the trip arrived.  Searching fruitlessly, and reaching Guillermo levels of desperation, I dashed into the first street side restaurant I saw.  As I waited outside the door, the maître'd approached.  "Excusez-moi monsieur.  Êtes-vous un client ici?"
"Oui," I said breezily, as if that were perfectly obvious.  Idiot.  I suddenly noticed that everyone in the restaurant was wearing blazers and slacks.  He switched to English.
"Sir, you are a client at this establishment?"
"Yes," I repeated, as if my t-shirt and shorts getup, Canucks ball cap, and Philadelphia Marathon 2010 drawstring napsack were not a collective symphony of declarations to the contrary.
"Alright," he said begrudgingly. "Make it fast."

Frot with danger...

At the hostel, Jordan complained to me that the shower head did not work, and that he'd been forced to take a bath in the tub.  "A bath?!" I exclaimed, quite exclamatorily.  I was almost impressed-- I don't think I even remember how to take a bath.  How does it work, exactly?  What do you do?  Luckily, I found Jordan was just being a dumb-dumb, and proceeded to use the shower head like everyone after the 18th century.  Then I debated whether I should tell Jordan I had figured it out...

When I think about you, I touch myself...

In Paris, I made a conscious effort to really see things.  The first time I went to Paris, 5 years ago, I went to the Louvre, and when I saw the Mona Lisa, there was a torrent of people squeezing through the room, and I strained to manage to take a few blurry photos from afar.  This time, we made a beeline for La Jaconde, and I looked at it for several minutes.  I stood there until I was convinced I had really seen it.

Often, when we take a picture, we assume that we have seen something, and we move on.  Then later, we realize we can't even remember what the thing looked like; the photo becomes a substitute for the memory, rather than an invocation of it .  It's easy to live life like this, through the camera's lens, but you realize that, in a sense, you weren't even really there when the picture was taken.  You take the memento over the moment, and then you realize you never really saw it.

Say what you want, the Asian tourists found this hilarious

A few stray observations thus far:

• Ethnic stereotypes aside, the one surefire way to tell if someone is European is if they are wearing a Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt
• "Paris Syndrome"-- where Japanese tourists have nervous breakdowns because Paris fails to meet the over-idealized and romanticized image they have built up-- and "Fan Death" have thus far comprised my Intro to East Asian Studies with Professor Jordain LeMoir, and I insensitively think they're both hilarious
• Jesus had some mad swag:

Gettin' his strut on

• And the French are a little more straightforward with their film titles than we are:

Due to some booking difficulties, our route from Paris to Venice looked like this:

Which meant we got to sleep on the night train with 4 other people, including an elderly hiker whose extensive travel was evinced more by his B.O. than his Crocodile Dundee hat.

Ultimately, a mix of Jordan's decimating tuberculosis, underwhelming food, and our disappointing accommodations left us with a bit of a sour taste in our mouths leaving Paris.  But I guess if the idea of Paris Syndrome teaches us anything, it's that, in order to get the most out of traveling, you have to be able to escape from certain fatal preconceptions; the Gatsby-esque fallacy of self-defeating prophesies.  That you have to be able to create your own beach if you can't find one--

--and above all, you should always avoid pithy, maxim-based analogies.

Munich

I left Prague with full-blown tourist shame, having capitulated and eaten Burger King at the train station.  Not to be out-American-ed, however, Jordan ate two meals at McDonald's the day we arrived in Munich, where he ordered this:

AMURICAH

Along with our roommates Matt--a fellow Vancouverite-- and two Dutchmen improbably named Maurice and Bob, we headed out to see Munich's nightlife.  "It's a dancing club?" Maurice asked the taxi driver eagerly.

"Yeah," replied the cabbie.  "Deesco!  Deesco!"

Apparently, the Munich cuckoo clock is the officially the
second most overrated tourist attraction in Europe
(behind the astrological clock in Prague)

And while the club was cramped and sweaty, it also served beer in glass mugs, and played "Two Princes" by Spin Doctors... AND TOTALLY REDEEMED ITSELF.

The next day, we did a walking tour of Munich with a British guide named Marcin.  Marcin was garrulous and funny, although he did occasionally make comments that seemed to allude to very depressing larger undercurrents, such as when he mentioned his life as a poor musician, or how his students used to make fun of him when he was a teacher, or the fact that he had stopped drinking a month and a half ago...

It's not the new millenium, it's the new MAXIMILIANEUM

Despite this, the tour was very informative.  At times too informative, such as when Marcin was describing the famous Hofbraühaus beer house, and spent nearly 15 minutes vividly recalling the history of urination there, which allegedly included opening your lederhosen and peeing all over your friends' legs, or into open gutters that ran across the floor.

Several of the ladies in the group could be seen cringing as Marcin got into a not-so-oblique discussion of the mechanics of "splashback"...

Sorry, I had promised to make this entry less scatalogical.

Besides delicious sausages (hey guys, enough with the jokes), Munich is also the wondrous land of one-liter beers, effectively upping the ante on Prague, and we both left the city with several liters of beer in our stomachs, as well as plenty of sausage (come on guys, I said enough with the jokes!).

The next day, Jordan and I headed out to Hohenschuangau to see Neuschwanstein Castle, the famous, ridiculously picturesque castle in which King Ludwig II went into reclusion, and on which Walt Disney apparently modeled his design for the Disney castle.

Though Jordan wasn't terribly impressed...

And surveying the staggering mist-shouldered mountains, the vast, running expanses of pastoral greenery, the vivid icy-blue lakes, and the mountain flowers gently blowing on the woodland hillsides, it was easy to see why this was the homeland of fairytales; easy to see how they could have once believed in magic--

AND THEN WE CLIMBED A FUCKING MOUNTAIN

We decided to hike a little ways up the mountain opposite the castle to get a better view of it.  But each time we thought we saw the summit, we arrived there only to found more mountain laying ahead of us, like some sort of mountainous Escher staircase.  But all the hikers coming the other way did not seem very tired, and they included little girls in sandals and great fat tourists, so we figured, "Hey, if Pit Stains over there can climb up and back, surely two lumberjackian lads such as ourselves shall have not the merest difficulty!"

So we kept climbing... 

and climbing...

and climbing.

And over three hours later, we reached the summit.  Which was 1707 meters high.

Which made us feel like--

Until we got "dinner" at the mountaintop restaurant--

--which seemed paltry recompense for our inspirational conquest of nature.  Once at the top, we realized that the train of hikers we had seen breezily going the other way had taken the gondola to the top of the mountain before leisurely strolling down.

The next day (legs aching), we went to Dachau.

Descending from the idyllic fairy-tale heights of Ludwig’s sylvan retreat to the death-stained campgrounds of Dachau feels like a powerful metaphor about the nature of man that I don’t feel pretentious enough to decipher or philosophize about.

According to Marcin, over 75% of Munich was destroyed during the bombings of World War II.  Knowing it was destined to be destroyed, Hitler ordered teams of thousands of photographers to chronicle every last inch of the city, down to the smallest detail, so that it could be rebuilt after the war.  Amazingly, 67 years later, the city is still being rebuilt; scaffolding spans the walls of the royal palace, and construction cranes litter the city skyline. 

It's at times like this that I begin to fully grasp Faulkner's quote, "The past is not dead.  In fact, it's not even past."

Czech Please!

Prague is ridiculously beautiful. It feels like what you would get if you asked the Disney imagineers to wet dream the quintessential European city into existence, with its ornate, candied architecture--

 its pristine cobbled streets, open squares and sunlit terraces--

its myriad of majestic (pee-obsessed) statues--

"Drink my pee lion!"

not to mention a lot of hot babes--

Though I'm still trying to wrap my head around the Czech style of driving:

Upon arriving in Prague, Jordan's navigational skills first reared their ugly head.  After walking for about half an hour, we asked a policeman where our hostel was.  Jordan showed him our map.

"No," he said.  "That's in Prague 1.  You're in Prague 3."

Wait whaaaaa...?

How many Pragues are there?  Did we even get off in the right Czech Republic?  Is this the pre- or post-crisis DC universe?

Turns out, Prague is confusingly divided into no less than 10-18 districts (depending, of course, on which of the two divisional systems you're using).  Thankfully, our hostel was located in the middle of Old Town, which looks like this:

...while the Prague we had been lost in looked more like this:

"Eastern Europe!"

Jordan quite philosophically observed, "If beer is the water in Germany, in Prague, it's the air."  Indeed, beer was cheaper than water, and you could usually get a half liter for around 1.25 € (the entire town seems to be sponsored by Pilsner Urquell).  We're still not sure if you can actually order a glass of regular water in Prague...

Jordan's serial killer photo face

We'll also remember Prague for the 6am wakeup calls consisting of street arguments, loud 2004-era techno music pumping from the street vendors, and this guy:

The first medical emergency of the trip came when I lightly pricked my foot on a piece of broken glass, so now I probably have hepatitis.  I am trying to face death bravely, friends.

#2 in the Patriot Series

I've realized that ever since arriving in Europe, I have found myself strangely self-conscious about how locals perceive me. Every time I speak, I realize they probably assume I'm an American, and I feel as if I can detect a slight disdainful twinge in their courtesies.

In order to compensate, I grin like an idiot, and try to be comically over-polite-- basically everything short of flat out saying, "Actually, I'm from Canada. PLEASE LIKE ME."

I know this is just me being neurotic- the locals probably hate tourists of all nationalities equally.

Jirasek Park

However, despite my supposed Canadianness, I out-Americaned Jordan at the Prague train station when, with a dearth of options, I caved and got Burger King for breakfast. So now in addition to definitely having Hepatitis, I'm also a simply destitute human being.

Regardless of minor capitulations, however, I'm still making an effort to try new things--

Jordan just read this post and said "There seems to be a bit of a theme here, and I'm not sure I like it," referring to the profusion of pee and penile pictures in this entry and the last one.  I'm not really sure why this is getting so scatological...

Now it's off to Munich, the big fat sausage capital of the world!