Travel stories

I woke up at 05.00 this morning because the sun was shining through the windows in my livingroom. That is one of the drawbacks about spring and summer, it gets so insanely bright early! Soon though, the sun wont go down at all. Or well, it will go down, but it will remain bright as a cloudy and rainy autumn day during the night. I currently have no curtains in my livingroom, I need to fix this soon, lest I should have a few months of waking up at 05.00.

So I got my lazy behind out of bed and cooked some breakfast, cuddling down in my couch under a blanket and behind one of Bill Brysons’ travel books. This is the first travel book that I’ve read - I’ve always been a bit pensieve or reading them, always thinking they are full of tacky stories of bad hotel experiences and what mainstream museums and bars you should attend. But this one isn’t, it’s describing the European people in an amusing way that makes me giggle. People on the bus and at other public places must think I’m a weirdo. But it got me thinking, here in these early morning hours about all the places I’ve seen and the people I’ve met.

In Turkey I met a homeless person who quite persistantly wanted to make me a flowery wreath as he was being my tourguide through some ruins right outside the little port town of Side. He was dirty and stinking of alcohole. But he was happy and in a good mood, telling me about all these little facts about how the irrigation system came to Side before they came to Rome in the antiquity, and he pointed out to me where the hospital had been, where the monestary had lain. I am quite sure he could have made a fair living of it all had he just somehow managed to shower and get some cleaner clothes and then take the bouts of tourists around the ruins. They were overgrown of weeds and flowers though, but it made it a bit more mysterious and fun to walk around.

In Dublin I ran into a retired sailor, or rather he ran into me. I was sitting on a bench with the leaves of  the trees above me acting as an umbrella down by the river side. I had just returned from a day with a friend of mine and his family taking the tour up the country side of Ireland after I had taken the train to Balbriggan. It had been a great day, but I needed desperatedly to draw some, so I found some statues and I just as well sat down and started to sketch. That’s when the man came and found me, worrying about my health since it was raining. He was on his way to meet a friend, but he stayed and talked to me for a while. He was now a photographer, and enjoyed travelling around Ireland. He even suggested a few places for me to go to when I would return to Ireland one day. Not that I recall them now.

In London, well, I’ve met a lot of strange people there. I’ve had a drop dead gorgeous egyptian coming over to me when I was sitting on the grass in Hyde Park at the end of the easter asking if I was married, and later brought me to meet his friend Pepsi. I’ve met nuns who are telling me they are going to include me in their evening prayers, and giving me a token of Mother Maria. I’ve had buddhist monks more or less assaulting me on the streets of Londong trying to persuade me to let him kidnap me into one of their newly opened up fresh resturant that offered a series of other things that had nothing to do wtih food. But one of the most remarkable men I met while in London, was a retired mason ( I mean, the mason who works with bricks and construction and such things, not the cult). I was travelling with my good friend Lucien from Holland, and we had wandered around London all day, we were tired and just simply wanted to enjoy a beer and some baileys at the bar of the hotel we were staying. The man, whos name I’ve forgotten, joins us on the barstools and starts talking to us. Wondering where we’re from and where we’re headed and such. After a while he starts ignoring Lucien all together and simply just talks to me, even though Lucien is sitting between the two of us. He told us some fascinating stories about a few buildings in London, where he used to work. And when to go to certain parts of London to see different sights to avoid the cue of tourism. Which, by the way, the advices we heeded were true! But after this, a beer or three later her started telling me about his son. That he was in jail now, and he was wondering what he would do when he got out. Telling me his whole life story, though he never said why his son was in jail. He was a good honest-working old man, the one at the pub. He had also been a sailor. I meet sailor everywhere I go! Even at home…

When I was around 12-14 years old, me and my friends were going to buy a present for our teacher. I don’t remember why, eitherway we got hungry in the end and decided to go to the local pizza place. They’ve been there for as long as I can remember and their food is still great! But as we were leaving this old, raggety man comes out from the toilets and starts talking to us. I still remember the surprise. People in Norway don’t really talk to strangers all that much, at least not randomly on the streets unless they want to sell you something. But regardless this old, raggety man, was also a sailor. Whales! You got to take the whales! They are big and mean, and they taste so deliciously! Whales, I tell you! I’ve killed a few of them in my time! I still do! Ha-ha-ha-ha! And then he walked off, leaving four 12-14 year olds mindstruck. This was around the same time when Green Peace was on Norway’s tail about how awful we are to the whales. I suppose they were right?