We’re All Backpackers in One Way or Another

August 5, 2007
Seattle, WA

Kim and I said our goodbyes at the train station in Vernazza at 7:15am and so began a long day of traveling by train, bus, and plane. As I was boarding the plane from Genoa to Amsterdam, I was not thinking about the new no-liquids in flight rules so they tagged me for trying to take down a plane with Olive Oil, Wine, and a lemon liquor (In their defense, it can be a lethal combo if paired with the right foods). This meant I had to either depart with my purchases or pack them in my carry-on backpack and check them at the ticket counter. So I checked my backpack with near certainty that it would be reduced to a sopping wet mash of shattered glass. I was convince it would be the only bag on the carousel that could be sautéed with vegetables. 

I was in a tired haze the whole day and as a result, continued my clumsiness by knocking over a glass of water on the flight from Genoa to Amsterdam, which happened to spill into the shoe of a cute girl who was sitting behind me. As luck would have it, the spilled glass of water served as a conversation piece as Saskia, the girl with the one wet shoe, and I were exiting the plane.

As you do when you are traveling and meeting many different people, sometimes briefly, you give them your two-minute download-life story and why it is you are traveling and meeting at this moment in time. Saskia was a classical and jazz cello player who had been playing music and vacationing in Barcelona. We discovered at baggage claim that Judith and her boyfriend Wouter were common friends. The world is so small sometimes. We carried on talking because it appeared that AlItalia Airlines lost my bag and her suitcase. We waited for a good hour at baggage claim as flight after flight was unloaded on the carousels with no apparent sign of either of our luggage. We walked off to baggage claim and Saskia said that since I only had two days left in Amsterdam, I should enjoy it and not have to worry about coming back to the airport to get my luggage. She said she could pick it up and we could meet for a drink near where she lived. While filling out our claims for our missing luggage, mysteriously my bag appeared after an hour-and-a-half, miraculously intact. We said we would like to get a drink together in the next day or two, but unfortunately I ran out of time and that just never happened. I made my way back to Susan’s around 7pm and fell asleep early.

My plan for my final two days in Amsterdam was to spend one day with Bret and one with Judith, since her internship had ended and Susan was working. The following day, however, Judith had come down with the flu. While we were traveling together in Africa, she came down with malaria and she has not been healthy ever since and seems to be susecptible to sickness more than others.

***

When Bret and I met up Tuesday morning in Leidseplien our energies were a little off, but after a while we were back in the groove. I rented a bike and we took a ride outside of town and had a picnic on a canal. Afterward, we stopped at a park for a “coffee” break and continued the conversation of, “What the hell is Jack Will Travel? What are we going to do with this?” It was feeling to me as if Bret was not interested in a common vision as he was talking about doing all of these other videos and posting them on his site. Then what is the purpose of Jack Will Travel, I was thinking? But in the mean time, he was feeling as if I was driving all of this traffic to my Web site as opposed to Jack Will Travel. There was some head butting going on but there had to be a way to marry these two visions.

We went back to Bret’s place and looked at some of the pictures and videos we had taken on the trip and traded a bunch of music. He also introduced me to the wonderful world of podcasting and video blogging. During this session our creative energies were coming together and we discussed perhaps creating a spin-off of Jack Will Travel where we would create identities for small businesses, since after all that is what we did for Jack Will Travel. We created something out of nothing, which was a “perceived” company with an identity – or at least an identity we wanted to portray – so why couldn’t we do this for other people? When Bret and I come eye-to-eye in one of these creative spaces, the possibilities seem endless. There seemed to be any number of directions we could take Jack Will Travel. I left Bret around 6pm and headed back to Susan’s place on my rented women’s bike. She made me dinner and we had another mellow evening as she had to study for work the next day.

The following day I awoke on the earlier side and headed to the Van Gogh museum before meeting up with Bret. I got there at 9:45am where a line had already formed for the 10am opening. As I was walking through the museum, I was overcome with emotion and almost brought to tears. I knew very little about Van Gogh besides what most people know, that he cut off part of his ear while under the influence of absinthe (supposedly). His “psychotic” episodes were more likely caused by epilepsy it is now believed.

Van Gogh spent his early life working for an art dealer until he was fired at the age of 26 for his overtly-religious views. It was at this point, with the support of his brother Theo, he decided to become a painter. Imagine that, at 26, with no experience as a painter to decide to just become one. This was just one of the many aspects of Van Gogh that moved me and inspired me. As I walked around the rooms of the museum, I noticed the evolution of his brush strokes and subject matter as they moved into the realms Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism, which eventually gave birth to his own style, Expressionism.

I find when I go see an art exhibit, it is not necessarily always the work of the artist that moves me or that I identify with, but the struggles and pain the artist endures for his or her own vision of truth, beauty, and expression. What moved me so much about Van Gogh was his sheer determination and focus to become an artist and to have the courage to create works which were not the norm of the day. This fact was compounded by the fact that Van Gogh’s entire body of work, which consists of more than 2,000 works, including 900 paintings and 1,100 drawing and sketches were produced in a ten year time frame. Van Gogh shot himself in the chest at 37 and probably died thinking he was a failure. Imagine that. What moved and humbled me most was the single-pointedness of his focus, desire, determination, and quest for truth, and I hoped that some day I too could possess an ounce of that drive.

After the Van Gogh museum, I met up with Bret and we drove around the city for the afternoon on our bikes. We stopped by the old Olympic Stadium and finally came to a shared vision of what Jack Will Travel will become (more on that later). The true challenge, however, is; can we continue this momentum and inspiration when we return to our colloquial day-to-day lives?

For the rest of the day as we drove throughout the city, my mind was consumed by the vision what Jack Will Travel could become. The conversation moved in and out of Jack Will Travel all day. At one point we sat on the edge of a river on the island of Ijburg, which is a residential neighborhood in east Amsterdam and the island is completely manmade. Apparently, many of the architects and designers who built this island have been recruited to help build The Palms in Dubai. As we were sitting by the water, we started talking about the future, which included wives, kids, etc. He told me a story about when he was a child, how his grandmother used to drop him off at her friend’s place who was 70 and never had any children.

“I don’t know if my grandmother dropped me off because I was such a hyper-active kid and she couldn’t handle me or if she felt sorry for this woman because she never had any children,” he said. “But this little old lady said something to me that I will never forget. She said, ‘Don’t go childless, Bret.’” How is that for an impression-bomb to drop on a ten-year-old? I feel like somehow that has haunted him his whole life. It’s almost as bad as when my family put coal in my stockings when I was ten-years-old, but that is another story for another time.

He went on to talk about this older couple in the waning years of their lives and how Ernie, her husband, was practically deaf and used to hold a horn up to his ear instead of a hearing aid. “I mean, even at ten I wanted to be like, hey Ernie, there are hearing aids, you know?” He closed that part of the bike tour by telling me about the no-sugar rule his mother tried to lay down, which only last two weeks. He remembers being in someone’s house and spinning wildly round and round on a bar stool and his Mom looked over at him with a straight face and said, “No more sugar.” After spending all of our time traveling together, I could totally see that whole scene. My only question now is, what is fueling that wild energy these days?

We drove around more that day and ended where it all began several weeks prior, in Leidseplien. We had a final beer at Dan Murphy’s Irish bar, which had sayings on chalk boards such as, “Liquor in the front – poke her in the back” and “Life is full of difficult choices, isn’t it silly Billy?” Our Jack Will Travel talks continued as we hashed out some final details of creative differences, reaching the point where I think we both feel comfortable about what we are going to do next.

I gave Bret a hug goodbye and said to the him, “Imagine if we had someone pay us to do another one of these things? Think about all we’ve learned and what we could do to take it to the next level.” 

He replied with, “I want to move from a one-star hotel to a two-star hotel, and keep adding stars. Then you get better sanitary options, your own toilettes, new bars of soap in fancier packaging, TV, and then CNN on the TV, and so on.” 

We snapped a few final pictures, and I walked off towards the tram to head back to Susan’s.

My mind was still reeling with the possibilities of Jack Will Travel when Bret called out to me, “Timbo! Aren’t you going to return your bike?” Sometimes when I am locked up in creative thoughts I can be a complete space cadet. That would have made the following morning challenging, having to get back into Leidseplien to return the bike and then head out to the airport.

I returned the bike and got on the train back to Susan’s place. I watched a backpacker who was obviously exploring the city for the first time curiously and somewhat nervously looking at the sign which listed the stops of the train and then look out the window searching for names of stops or landmarks. Only a few weeks prior I was that same person, uncertain as to where I was going or where I was going to get off, much like all of us in life. We’re all backpackers in some sense, all trying to get somewhere, always moving from one place to the next, more often than not in a state of flux. Sometimes we land somewhere for a while, but mostly we are in transition, whether it is from one place to another, one addiction to another, one lover to another, one job to another, or one space in our minds to another.

When I did finally get home that night, Susan was waiting for me and we headed out for a final drink. Her neighbors saw a sight that had become common in her housing complex; her driving away on her bike and me running along side while trying to hop on the back as she drove me from one Amsterdam location to the next.

(P.S. – two more blogs to go. Stay tuned…)

Vernazza’s Festa di Pirati

August 2, 2007
Amsterdam, Netherlands

“I’ve taken a new Italian lover!” was one of the first things Kim said to me after I settled in next to her on the train from Genoa to Cinque Terre. “His name is ‘Cousin Bob.’”

As you can imagine, this statement momentarily caused me great consternation as I paused to question everything I had ever known about Kim, her past, and her family. It was quickly clarified, however, that “Cousin Bob” was actually the cousin of the bride at a wedding she attended the weekend prior. It did not stop us from exploring the topic further as we discussed the pros and cons of dating your cousin;

Pros

• You never have to worry about who’s side of the family you will be spending your holidays with
• You already know the family and will likely be accepted by 87.4% of the them (sure there are exceptions to the rules and yes there is going to be some sibling and relative rivalries but…)
• You already know the in-laws and thus you already know what you are getting yourself into.

Cons

• Most likely learning disabilities and birth defects.

It was only a few days later that Kim actually found out “Cousin Bob” was not Italian but Iranian, and his name incidentally was not Bob, but Boback - but I mean come on – Italian, Iranian…who can tell the difference these days as international love lines become blurred? 

Ten minutes prior to meeting up with Kim as I stood on the platform waiting for her train to arrive, I had a feeling one of us had bad information and that one of us was on the wrong train. Kim was coming from Turino, Italy, where she was working and we were to meet on a train in Genoa, however, the time for the train she gave me did not match up with the train I was instructed to take. I ran across the street with my bags to an Internet cafe and quickly scribed a message to her which she never actually received. As it turns out, as I entered the train wondering, ‘If I were Kim, which car would I be on?” I looked to the left and lo and behold, up popped her head from behind a seat.

We spent the next two hours catching up since we had not seen each other since the morning after the National show when she drove me to the airport at 6:00am after I pulled an all-nighter. As we chatted, the train chugged along the tracks that were built into the cliffs and below us stretching to the horizon were the crystalline waters of the Mediterranean. Talking, talking, talking we carried on, so much in fact that we sailed right past our stop, disembarking two stops too late in the town of Riomaggiore (truth be known, I did stick my head out the door at the right stop and saw ‘Uscita’ and only later did I realize it meant ‘exit’ as opposed to a town me might be rolling through). The mishap was fortuitous in the fact that we met Daniel, an Italian bartender who had an air of Jeff Spiclolli about him, but Italian of course. Daniel told us about the Festa di Pirati, or Festival of the Pirates, occurring on Saturday night. “Yessa, Johnny Depp and all…” What that actually meant and the evening entailed we did not yet know. There were rumors of pirates coming from the sea, a DJ, and lots and lots of drinking. All the above did in fact prove to be true.

When we finally arrived, we were instructed to find the Internet cafe in the center of Vernazza, and from there we were to ask for our landlady, who would be renting us an apartment in her house. The cozy apartment consisted of two bedrooms, a small kitchen, a bathroom with a shower, and a refrigerator. When the woman and her Italian translator finally left us on our own in the apartment, Kim and I were dancing with elation.

Kim’s suitcase weighed about as much as her Mini-Cooper and when I saw some of the things she brought along it made sense. One of these things included iPod speakers. Brilliant. While she was on the phone talking with work, I went to plug the speakers in and the moment I plugged it in I heard a pop - and in that moment all the lights in the apartment went black and the outlet gave off the smell of an electrical fire. I blew the fuse and fried the iPod adapter as I forget to plug the European voltage adapter in. Rookie move. Kim and I grabbed a big lunch and when we came back to the room. Since she was still jet-lagged, she took a nap and I set off into town to check things out.

Vernazza is one of, if not the smallest coastal villages of Cinque Terre in the La Spezia province of the Liguria region. Cinque Terre literally means five territories. Its population only consists of 500 people yet it thrives on the business of tourism and the only way to access these towns is to hike in, take the train, or take a boat. Its layout is quite simple; there is one winding street that makes its way through the town and ends up in a square which is protected by a rocky harbor. On the other side of the rocks, the Mediterranean sometimes laps against the rocks and at other times violently pounds the shore. Behind the town, terraced vineyards rise straight up from sea level giving way to rocky, jagged, cliffs and summits.

As was similar to hiking through France, there are red and white dashed markers on rocks and poles to guide you on your hike from town to town, so I followed the trail behind the town south and found a nice little restaurant overlooking the town which was half the price of what they were in town. On my way back down, the streets were clogged with an old-fashion Italian wedding procession and a very attractive wedding party. Tourists and the wedding party mixed together in the streets as friends gathered to hug, kiss, congratulate, and snap pictures of the bride and groom. At one point the couple disappeared and reappeared in a third story window that was garnished with sunflowers. I thought they would be throwing the bouquet down as is common in our American wedding tradition and the person who received it would be the next to get married. Instead, basket after basket of candy was thrown by the fistful into the streets. I thought maybe they would throw five or so baskets but they must have thrown twenty plus baskets of hard candies and chocolates into the streets. Handful after handful they came from above like German bombs raining down on the streets of London. It didn’t take long before hearty Italian grandmothers were pushing me out of the way and diving on their hands and knees for the great candy grab of 07′.

Kim and I had a nice dinner that night above the town and afterwards we grabbed a bottle of wine and went to the town square to watch the merriment of the wedding party. Their dinner lasted hours and their singing went on for hours after that. In the meantime, Kim and I met two couples; Josh and Kristen from Washington, D.C. and Mary and Ryan from San Francisco. We drank bottle after bottle of wine and moved out onto the pier as the party began to splinter into individual conversation. From there, we joined the wedding party at a bar in town and danced until almost four in the morning. Kim and I ended the evening with one more visit to the edge of town where the rocks met the sea, and we watched as the full moon danced on the water, creating a shimmering carpet of moonlight that stretched on into infinity.

The next morning I was up and in the center of the town writing by 11 (writing the previous chapter) as Kim slept in until noon. By 1pm we were on the trail south to visit several of the towns along the way. It was a grueling but rewarding hike as the trail rose high above the Mediterranean, hugging cliffs and every once in a while revealing a hidden beach below. Kim and I stopped at one such spot and climbed down to the beach below. We swam like children enjoying the freedom of summer vacation and laid about the rocks like sunbathing-seals. We also had an impromptu photo shoot. In the late afternoon after getting a pizza in the town of Corniglia, we jumped on a boat in Mararola back to Vernazza. We showered, grabbed some dinner on the main square, and awaited the landing of the pirates.

Shortly after about 10:20pm, as the last hints of daylight were exiting the western sky, a cannon went off and loud speakers began blaring dramatic Italian music. Around the corner ten plus landing boats came to shore filled with many variations of Captain Jack Sparrows. Now Daniel’s comment about Johnny Depp made sense. They held torches and stormed the shore and at one point a pirate made his way to the clock tower to deliver a dramatic speech in Italian, which Kim kindly translate for us (despite that fact that she doesn’t speak Italian). When they landed, a Drum Major lead with his whistle and hand signals a drum line of twenty plus percussion players. Up through the streets they marched and back down again, ending in the square where they rocked out for maybe two hours as hoards of people danced in tribal and rhythmic movements. The drums were raising everyone’s energy and when the DJ finally started to play, the place was in a mad frenzy. Italian men ran about dancing with women and trying to kiss every one they possibly could. One man grabbed my drink, threw some pills in his mouth, took a swig, and handed it back to me. Kim and I danced with no inhibitions and not soon after our new friends Ryan and Mary were letting loose as well.

Around four in the morning, after we lost Ryan and Mary, Kim and I found in the center of town a small walkway that hugged the water and we curiously followed it, at one point, schooching along on our asses because there was not enough head clearance and we narrowly avoided falling into the water. When we made our way through this arched walkway, it opened up on the other side to the Mediterranean with sheer cliffs coming down behind us. It was the setting for an hour or more of some very intense conversations about our past, what we want from our lives, and our families. Being that it would have been my Father’s 84th birthday the previous day, he was weighing heavily on my mind and for the first time in a long time I lost it as I did those first few days after he died. It is hard to explain the experience of loosing one of your parents. You can talk about it in many different lights and angles, but when it comes down to it, it is actually something that must be lived and experienced to fully comprehend. The loss of your parents, or anyone you love in life is a wound that I don’t think ever fully heals. Beneath the surface, there will always be scar tissue to mark the life-altering event. But this in fact is not necessarily a bad thing. In many ways I find it comforting to still be able to cry so passionately over the loss. For me it is a reminder of how close the connection can still be. It is also a way to still feel him as closely as I possibly can in this temporal reality, an existence in which we are limited by the constraints and physics of time and space.

When that part of the evening was over, Kim and I met a few Kiwis (New Zealanders) and a few Irish lads. We chatted with them for a while and headed back to our room but upon arriving there, I realized I wasn’t ready to go to bed. Kim fell asleep and I went out to chat with Lindsay and Michael, two 21-year-old Irish friends traveling together through Italy on their way to Rome the following day. Michael eventually passed out on the concrete and Lindsay and I chatted on and on, past the departure of their train at 5:50am. I invited them back to our place to crash on the floor and they got a good solid two hours before they left at 8:20am. Out of gratitude, Lindsey drew me a picture of what she imagined Seattle might look like and Michael gave me a lighter “especially designed for a bong,” as he explained in the wonderful Irish accent.

The next morning, being the early-bird I am, I awoke at 1:30pm and we were on the trail north towards Monterrosa al Mare an hour later. The hike from Vernazza climbed straight up and it was excruciating. Because Kim did not want to carry a large bottle of water, she talked me out of the purchase and we both grabbed a small bottle of water for the grueling hike. An hour-and-a-half later when we reached the town, I was feeling faint and my leg was uncontrollably shaking. I was not only hung over, but incredibly dehydrated. As it turned out, the town was too much of a cheesy European resort so after re-hydrating and then topping off the re-hydration with a glass of white wine, we jumped on the boat back to Vernazza. As luck would have it, the water at the landing in Vernazza was so rough we had to go two towns down and take the train back up. I was looking forward to just getting home and was crushed by the prospect of not being able to disembark, however, Kim put a positive spin on it and said, “I can think of worse things to do than be on a boat in the Mediterranean.” We had another beer back in Manarola and just made the train back to Venrazza. As it turned out, back in Vernazza near the landing, there was a large pool of blood on the rocks and someone told us they had been pulling out people from the surf all day long as the angry sea hurled people like match sticks against the rocks.

Kim and I had a great dinner that night with a waiter who hated us. At one point we asked him what it was we were eating because we liked it so much and he said, “I don’t know,” and walked off. Not too much later I spilled an entire glass of red wine in my lap which was quite a buzz kill but soda water solved that problem. Kim bought a liter at dinner and poured it all over my lap. It was not the most comfortable dinner I have ever had. 

After dinner we met up with Ryan and Mary for a nightcap at the Blue Marlin, promised to meet up in Seattle or San Francisco for our own pirate party, said our goodbyes, and headed off to bed for our final night’s sleep in the magical, coastal town of Vernazza.