Porto, PT: Change in the Wind, says I.

(Note: I've started going back through the notebook I wrote in throughout my trip. Entries from here on out with be jumbled, from different dates and countries and mindsets.)

To communicate. This is not a wish, nor an action. It's a necessity, something essential that I can't grasp here, a handful of sand, or a wet, new rope: I have it in the palm of my hand yet I cannot hold onto it. At the airport (Charles de Gaulle), in line and at the cafes, my French must have been passable enough-after one sentence, I'm swept away by a flood of rapid French, only half of which is understandable.

Here, in Porto as in Lisboa, I'm mistaken for Brasilian, sometimes for Portuguese. The flood comes again. To communicate with rapidity, with fluency, I crave like, right now, I crave food, preemptively imagining what it used to be like to ignore the shape of my mouth, the roundness of "o" or the slurring of "l-h".

Hunger. This is not it's harshest form, something I will not venture to liken to what I am: sitting in a hotel room, a bag of tiny pears in front of me, dreaming of French fries, a baked potato, steak. When I get to London, no matter how late, I will find a place that's open, that sells pies and chips and peas. The last week's subsistence on 5-7 Euro a day has yielded a sandwich, two cups of milky coffee, a piece of fruit, some chocolate. This is not yet a debilitating hunger. Rather, like one word's contiguousness with another, this one pear and this croissant, this cup of coffee and an apple, all blend together to create a lack of satisfaction, an unremitting lack of ending, syntax stilted, the hesitation of native speakers before my halting questions.

Unable to face another night of cold, wet sleeplessness, I've spent 30 Euro on a hotel room in Porto. I've been somewhat marooned: having braved the ICC (intercity) trains and another long ride on the metro, I arrived here thinking Brandon would eventually do the same. We'd head off to London, and from there resume our much-touted trek through the UK. It's been 12 hours. He's nowhere in sight. The young man working the night shift here is grateful for the company. I drink a too-sweet European Coca-Cola and sit up with him, in the lobby, watching British sitcoms and comedy revivals. He asks if the entire state of Alaska is full of bears. This time, I don't mind answering the questions. In the morning, Liliana, the morning shift girl, fixes me a pot of hot, strong coffee. She's someone else who's shocked: she swears I'm Portuguese. I'm tired, groggy, I apologize, but I have to switch to English. Again I'm floundering, hunting for some justification, some reason for my certainly jumbled syntax. Why have I bothered to learn at all, if I can't have a conversation at 8 in the morning? Liliana doesn't seem to mind. She ignores the rules about check-in and check-out. She says I can stay until noon. We laugh at the supposed silliness of all these questions about bears and igloos and snow; she wants to take a cruise to Alaska one day. Before I leave, she looks the other way, waives the 25 cent charge for making a phone call, and lets me call Brandon one more time. He's not picking up. I need to find a computer, and fast.

Before heading back to the airport, I stop round the corner for something to eat. For 2.40 Euro, I get a bowl of soup and an apple. The apple, though I pull it from the mini-fridge outside the counter, is washed and handed back to me by the smiling shop-girl. She gives it to me on a china plate, with a tiny knife for cutting it into slices. The soup she brings out to me, first arranging a white paper cloth on my table, then a silverware set. My apple on its porcelain plate glistens with the water on its skin. Its tacitness is perfect: it waits to be cut into and when I do, I find it perfect inside as well, and I can't eat it all at once, but linger, taking small bites, turning the pages of my book methodically. The shop girl brings out my soup, and that I eat ravenously, Portuguese news blaring behind me.

I can almost understand what's happening, the inflection of the male newscaster over the female. I manage a strong Muito obrigada. O sopa estas bem. The shop-girl says nothing back. She seems to know that this is all I can manage. Each table in the cafe shines. Liliana's address is in my notebook; I'll send her something, when I get home. Rain-slicked red umbrellas on the patio, and an elderly man with a black cane walking by the window. There's a freshness to this version of alone that I hadn't known before.

Random "Best Of" Pics from Europe

Why I Still Believe in CouchSurfing, Part the Second

So...to pick up where we left off, my first host in Warszawa was extremely helpful from the outset, coming to pick me up at the train station, giving me maps & directions & invitations to various events. I assumed, given his age (20 years my senior; I am 27), that he was a fatherly sort of person, & was grateful for the help.

The uncomfortable situations began almost immediately: hugs as I left for the morning during which he slid his hands down my back quickly enough to graze my butt before I could pull away; random comments about Indian women; one evening, a conversation about CouchSurfing that ended with his mentioning, "If I said I have never slept with my CouchSurfing guests, I would be lying; if I said I had never slept with any hosts, that would be a lie, too." Most people reading this will same a similar reaction: That's fucked up, for one, and for two, why didn't you get out immediately?

This is, of course, the reaction of someone outside the situation, although I must concede to this point. Why DON'T we remove ourselves immediately & forcibly from these types of scenarios? Why DON'T we open our mouths & tell the offending party where to step off, that what they're doing is inappropriate & wrong? It's good question, I allow; it's very easy to become incensed by the way someone has been treated & to let that indignation tell you what to tell them they should have done. I can only reference myself in this case, to say that I had no idea how to react. It was shocking. I had entrusted myself to this person's care, as one does whilst surfing, & rather than having a pleasant, friendly, respectful host, I now had a pleasant, overly-friendly & audacious one. As difficult as this may be for others to understand, I believe it is also a valid point. Many women (or men, for that matter) are at a loss as to how to effectively remove themselves from a situation like this. In the case of CS, it becomes all the more difficult for one's predisposition to timidity: We are guests, and the host has been gracious enough to provide a bed, or guidance around the city, or a meal, or all of the above; we feel as though the only reaction available to us ought to be gratitude. Or, more simply, we are taken aback by this abuse of the project, especially by those who (again, ON PAPER) come to us so highly recommended.

To shorten this lengthy account, the situation got out of hand a few days later, after I had-probably unnecessarily-put up with these comments & gestures for four or so nights. Having walked around Warszawa all day in the cold, I arrived back at the apartment to find my host was not in. This was a huge relief, but it lasted only briefly, as he called to say he would be home shortly. I sat stiffly on one end of the couch as he flipped through the T.V. channels & then suggested we watch a movie. At one point during "The Break-up" (which I do not suggest watching), he laughed at something Vince Vaughn said & clapped his hand down over my thigh, then started rubbing my leg. I moved. As soon as the movie was over, I stood up and said I was going to sleep. He had been sleeping in the living room on the pull-out bed, giving me the bedroom with its door of frosted glass & reassuring bolt lock. Instead of leaving me alone, however, he came into the bedroom (as I was not yet asleep, the door was open; I was straightening up my things) and stood in the doorway.

"So", he said, "Do I get to sleep with you tonight, or do I have to sleep in my own bed?"


I believe I felt three things:
1) Confusion: How could someone who came so highly recommended by others on the CouchSurfing project be doing this? How could he deem it "OK" to approach a female guest like this? While I doubted I was the only woman to experience this kind of sexual harassment, the references left on his profile were undeniably stellar; no one else had made any comments regarding him approaching them sexually. Was I just overreacting?
2) Panic: I had no idea what to do. Again, as you do, I was relying on this person for shelter in Warszawa. I knew there were plenty of hostels in the area, but I had no idea how to remove myself from the house without being forced into a lengthy & probably unpleasant altercation. I had keys to the house, & the security codes for the gates. I was on foot with a heavy backpack. How far would this guy go?
3) Total Paralysis: Based mostly on the combination of the two above feelings. It was now close to 3 AM. How in the world was I supposed to find somewhere to stay that night?

The end result of this was that I stayed that night, slept not at all, and immediately left the house the next morning. I spent the rest of that day touring Warszawa with a friend, then returned to the house only to pack up my things & leave; another Couchsurfing host picked me up.

So, why do I still believe wholeheartedly in CS, its mission, its participants, & the system in general?

Because occurrences like the above are a rarity. : In my experience, the vast, vast majority of CSers are, if not innocent, completely devoted to making the system work in their favor, which entails making it work for EVERYONE. They are open, fun, friendly, and just the right amount crazy, but never disrespectful, intrusive or sleazy.

Because for every oddball, creep or personality mismatch, there are hundreds of absolute gems: This was never more true than in Warszawa. Immediately upon leaving the nightmare, I walked straight into one of the best CS experiences of the trip. Staying with my 2nd host (hosts, actually: they're brothers) was so much fun, & I plan to return to Warszawa to surf with them again on my way back home. You may encounter creeps, like I did. You may have hosts or surfers that you quite simply go not get along with, for various reason. You may host someone whose habits strike you as odd, or perhaps somewhat alarming; you may surf with someone who just seems 'off' somehow. This may leave a bad taste in your mouth until you next host/surf, and I can guarantee you that, next time or the time after that or consistently for a year, you will make the best friends you never knew you could have, & have experiences with them you'd never have had without CS.

Because I refuse to let go of my faith in human goodness, hospitality, & altruistic trust.: Shit happens. We all know that. There are bad people & weird people & sneaky people all over the world. But that doesn't mean that you should walk through the world with a can of Mace in your pocket, or stay only in hotels, or refuse to travel to a place because you heard "the crime rate is really high". I refuse to live by looking over my shoulder constantly, traveling only from point A to point B, speaking only to those who "look safe" or are familiar. CS is based on the fundamental & integral belief that human nature also includes the inclination towards altruism: by helping & supporting our peers we ensure our own survival, or, helping others to help ourselves. CS is devoted to this principle.

I will continue to surf, to host & to explain both to everyone I know, in the hopes that CS attracts more & more of its essential & upstanding members.

Terrible Belgian Weather: 1. Me: Negative 10

Or: How I Learned to be Soaking Wet and Like It
Mons, Belgium

Please do not insert innuendo into the above (which in and of itself is an innuendo, and now I am screwed.)

The first 3 days here in Belgium were spectacular. The weather held marvelously, producing hot-pink sunsets & warm breezes, & for the first time since leaving Krakow, the sun soaked through my black fleece so that I was forced to remove it, & walk around in a t-shirt. It was not to last. For the better part of the first day, I rode a borrowed bicycle down side roads to emerge at SHAPE-the headquarters for all allied personnel in Europe, a daunting concept, even more so when one considers the events leading to its creation. (Here, of course, is what's amazed me regularly since arriving in Europe: that all of this could be built back up from rubble & ash, that it had to be in the first place...)

It started to rain after the 3rd day (sounds like the Bible, eh?). This wasn't any rain. This was driving, pelting, cold fucking rain. The driving & pelting were helped along by a brisk wind. I attempted time & time again to venture out into the countryside, camera protectively slung under one arm.

Pastoralism has its own appeal, an appeal that comes from piles of corncobs & sugar beets & white potatoes heaped carefully by the roadside, waiting for transport. From a flock of big, orange-billed, honking geese, curly tails wagging under a stand of lemon trees, green grass under webbed yellow feet. From houses & barns & streets made solely of brick, crumbling away slowly under your feet: this contribution to both the life of the town & to you, since the brick is polished smoother by your walking, & the residue of it comes home with you, to be preserved in the soles of your shoes. This is where I'm staying in Belgium: outside town, and I walk down the back roads from cluster of houses to sprawling field to duck yard, nowhere in particular in mind. Then again, to be particular is not a habit one forms while backpacking alone around a foreign country.

Two days into the trip, I'm already restless, having completely unpacked my ugly blue packframe, laying clothes out in folded, nice piles, doing laundry, showering in my own bathroom with fluffy rose-pink towels. My host mom & dad have dinner on the table every night, a fireplace that roars (though for the life of me I can't get it to light after fewer than 6 tries). Every night we sit around the table & chat about our days, what we'll do tomorrow, gossip from home (the States). My feet are stretching under the covers at night, accustomed now to 5 or 6 hours per day of walking nowhere in particular. I elect to take the bus into Mons to do errands for my host mom, who needs some things from a specific store. She describes it, and gives me directions, and says she knows for sure there's a big yellow plastic button on the door handle. It seems fairly self-explanatory. Instead, I march resolutely up and down the streets of Mons for hours, searching. In the Singer Sewing Machine Parts Store, I finally give up and ask the shopkeeper if he thinks it still exists.
La Vitresse, c'est fermer, n'est pas?"
Non, c'est impossible. La Vitresse est ici, a cote de la fontagne.

Fuck. I've already passed the damn fountain 5 times, and I know it's not there. In frustration, I march in the opposite direction, in complete ignorance of what might this way lie. Suddenly, I'm outside the square, and everything is quiet, but I spy a pub with the ubiquitous Leffe beer sign above its entrance. A glass of wine sounds amazing. It is 2 PM.

As soon as I open the door, I know this is my kind of place. Small, out of the way. The proprietor wears a long white beard & John Lennon glasses. There's a little old lady with a newspaper & a cup of tea sitting at the bar, a couple of disheveled men smoking cigarettes in the corner. My bad French isn't so bad that I can't order un vin rouge, s'il vous plait, which costs me 1.90 Euro, a fucking bargain, if you ask me. All along the windows are cards. I peer curiously at one as I sit down; they're info cards for Free Trade & Organics, explaining that 25% of the profits from specific products purchased here will go to OxFam. I wonder if my wine is one of them. Something French is blasting on the radio, and I understand approximately .0025 of the lyrics, but I love it, with its light-sounding guitar & rock n' roll rhythm. I pull up a chair in the back, next to the huge chalkboard displaying the menu, & yank T.S. Eliot out of my backpack. I take a sip of the wine: for 1.90 Euro, it's impressively rich & full of the taste of pepper & plums.

Outside, it's starting to darken, the clouds coming in yet again. I know it will rain as soon as I leave this place. That's just the way my luck is with weather around here. The kindly bar owner brings over a coaster & nods. He, like everyone else here, seems to know a tourist when they see one, but they don't let on. Finishing good old T.S.'s "Ariel Poems", less certain than ever whether I like that venerable old poet at all, I throw on all my gear, pack everything up & step out. Prophesy fulfilled (too much Tiresias in the last hour??): it immediately starts to fucking pour. Awesome.

I've got another 10 minute walk to the bus station. In this 10 minutes, I meander, hatless, through crowds of Belgians returning from, or going to, work. Sensibly, they have umbrellas, plastic ponchos, shopping bags wrapped around their purses. Rain is absolutely streaming down my face, my hair is soaked, & my pant-legs are becoming heavy with water. Yet, as I walk, I'm passing cathedrals & the famous Belfry of Mons. There are pubs & shops with their windows lit up, some blaring American hip-hop, others filtering just voices & the clank of glasses out the door. The Christmas decorations are up, every street strung overhead with tiny white lights. Webs of them illuminate what's below just as much as what's above: the bustle of all of us on the cobbles underneath, & up over our heads, the arches & statues & carved stones of the churches. From the numerous patisseries & brasseries comes the mingled scent of pain au chocolat, gaufres, poulet au roti & everything is somehow commonplace & rich all at the same time.

I finally reach the bus stop to find that the #15 to SHAPE won't arrive for another 20 minutes. It's a bit cold, & I can feel the chill in my legs & hands. I huddle up on a bench, & an elderly Belgian woman arrives to sit next to me. She's petite & demure-looking, dressed stylishly in a long skirt & flat black shoes, even in this rain. As she puts her packages down, she drops her umbrella. I stoop to pick it up, & hand it to her. C'est ta parapluie, madame. She hooks the offending contraption over her arm & smiles at me, pats my arm a couple of times.

Ahh, merci beaucoup, mademoiselle. Tu est tres gentile, tres gentile.

You're so kind, so kind. A thanks is ever & always a warm draught, no matter the weather. We can barely communicate, since I struggle still to reply quickly to rapidly-spoken French, but we sit amiably together on the bench, & she turns to me again, smiles, & mimes a shiver: C'est tres froid au'jourd-hui! Pas mal. I do the same. In front of us, part of the Christmas carnival looms: rides blaring more hip-hop music as they sweep children above & past us, the cotton-candy vendor, game stands hung with purple & gold & blue stuffed animals & balloons, & the woman's arm against my shoulder (for we are squeezed onto the small bench with her packages between us) is warm. I'm still soaking wet, but the free-trade wine I drank warms my belly still, as does the casual salute the old bartender threw my way as I left, & this is how I got soaking wet & learned to love it, while the buses carry us all back home & the evening wears on in its own way.

Why I still believe in CouchSurfing, possibly now more than ever.

Part the First: A Little History


There are a few to whom I've told the partially-horrific story of my Couchsurfing experience in Warszawa. Please don't tell my mother. In fact, don't tell anyone who's skeptical, nervous or downright disparaging of the project; it will just confirm their fears. I suppose I ought to let this account speak for itself, but first, a preface, and an explanation of the Couchsurfing project for those who've never been exposed:

The Couchsurfing project was founded by a young gentleman who, upon deciding to world-travel, became aware first of its inevitable costs, the most consumptive of which is always lodging, and second, of the fact that he had had enough of paying them. So, before going to Iceland, he kicked out roughly 1,500 emails to local students and residents, asking if anyone had a spare bed/couch/piece of floor he might occupy. The return was plentiful: over 50 potential hosts. Casey Fenton was hooked and determined to launch a hospitality site devoted to making travel for young people (for any people, ultimately!) free, friendly and safe.

The 'safe' part is where most people have questions. To doubters, we appear as nothing but a travelers' MySpace, a giant collective of faceless, nameless and bodiless posters just running around waiting to be mugged, stabbed or raped. CS has been of late at the forefront of travel news, the center of a murder investigation. (Just Google Couchsurfing and murder and you'll see the result...)

Having hosted several surfers in my own home before I came to Europe, I remain without doubt as to the safety of CS. I've hosted only guys, young ones at that, one from Turkey, another from New York and so on and so forth. All were kind, polite, helpful, and harmless. I've met up for coffee and drinks with other CSers that I was unable to host, another pleasant experience. None of this, however, is a substitute for being the 'surfer' rather than the 'surfee' or host.

My first host was a woman, and she is fabulous (I say is, because at the time of this post, we're planning on meeting back up in Lisboa for another epic night of dancing). Clearly there are assets to surfing with only women, if you are a woman, first and foremost being the relative lack of risk to your person and personal boundaries. Having come from such a positive first surfing experience, and based on my experiences as a host for young guys, I didn't think twice about soliciting a couch in my next port of call, Warszawa, PL. I requested to surf with many people in that particular city, and received a reply from a man who was listed in the CS directory as the City Ambassador for all of Warszawa. He had over 200 guests boasted on his profile and the references were undeniably positive. ON PAPER, this guy looked like the man to meet if you were an avid surfer, and more so if you were just starting out. He said he was able to host me, and I accepted, little knowing that my own Couchsurfing nightmare was lying in wait.

At long last, more pictures...

Lille, FR.


In transit, SNCB from Lille, FR to Mons, BE


Lille, FR


Lille, FR



Sunset, Erbisoeul, BE
Mons, Belgium & Lille, France; random photos from an SNCB train

Distance: Successive Portraits

Mons, Belgium

I.

All my plans to leave are slow,
but I'm a patient man.
Patient with whom, it's hard
to say.
Snow makes my shadow
indistinguishable
from my Self.

I paint.

I paint until I can see you again,
iridescent in the fumes,
plastic car parts as limbs,
your body
a cloud, off-white like thunderheads,

the kind I used to dream
I could walk
or run
or lie upon
without
fallling through.

II.
All my plans to leave

are slow, but I'm
a patient man,
since there are still
leaves on the trees, still fires
burning in the Interior,
& the sick haze
they make is a fever
dream,
of the sort I once had
ill in bed for days,
heat like a hot wax
creeping up my face-
this it it
then,
death mask,
features solidified-
& you
brought me what you call
your 'special drink':
lemon peel
& clover honey
& a shot of whiskey
in black tea:
Drink this
& I tried, blaze
in my throat like the taste
of you under
my tongue
the day you said I was the only
one to make you do that,
ever.

III.

All my plans
to leave
are slow
but I'm a patient
man & today
I smoked
the last
cigarette:
Marlboro Lite
because
you always told me
smoking kills
& here I am
chewing peppermint
gum
poking today's paper
into
the fire
with the cigarette
packet, waiting
for the craving,
for the descent
toward madness
to start.

IV.

All my plans to leave
are slow but I'm a patient man.
I can walk to the sea from here,
& from there I can, & have,
cast out bottles,
with notes inside, sometimes,
& other times with scraps
of sheet metal, or paint scrapings,
or bits of wire wrapped in copper,
or full of the shavings
from a fiberglass boat hull.

I thought you might like
them, & I'm not good
with words.

Only with my hands.
Only with them wrapped around
a welding torch, or a paintbrush,
or the stubs of black pens,
the ones I used to shade your hair
in that sketch.

Most of the time, I toss
the bottles out
full of my hopes, which I rest
on you,
& these bottles are full
of nothing, of nothing at all.