Having missed it the first time...

So there's a problem intrinsic to trying to document an adventure while you're having it: time. You can either be seeing things you've never seen or writing about them.

I am now back at my happy light in the cold den of my sprawling house, having finished not only my entire trip, but the endless trip home and a day of sedentary recovery as well. While I was on the train during travels I did type up some text, and everywhere I brought with my little pencilled journal, so I'm now typing that up too -- but I have no coherent story of the rest of my days. For the sake of efficiency, here's what came after what I've written about on here so far:
1/6/07, Saturday, Train from Paris to Munich, saw historic buildings in Munich, went to City Museum to learn about Nazi Reich history and see a zillion weird OLD instruments
1/7/07, Sunday, Guided bus tour around Munich, rest of the day at the Dachau concentration camp
1/8/07, Monday, used a car in a carshare program to drive to the Real Disney Castle, Neuschwanstein, at the foothills of the Alps (though they're not called foothills and they're not exactly hills -- more like the mountains just START, no transition -- and we hiked around a lake
1/9/07, Tuesday, relaxed and did more stuff in Munich, bought presents (mostly for me), went to see Eragon dubbed in German1/10/07, Wednesday, took train across countryside south to the Alps, took train and gondolas to the top of the Zugspitze, the highest mountain in Germany -- saw a disarmingly gorgeous lake in the fog1/11/07, Thursday, took Munich municipal transit as far south as possible to the 550-year-old Andrechs monastery and brewery in a peaceful little town, hiked through wet forests, saw the gorgeous Ammersee lake, bought chocolate; upon returning to Munich went to see the Olympiapark designed 35 years ago for the Olympics; climbed the hill there that is made of war detritus to see the glittering panorama of the city at night1/12/07, Friday, left Bernd's at 8:15 to take subway to airport, flew 10 hours across ocean to Dulles in Washington D.C. -- disembarked to accompany my luggage through customs but they screwed up and the whole flight's luggage took an hour to get to the place where we were supposed to take it through customs, so I missed my scheduled flight to DIA; finally took my luggage through and went to United's next departing flight for DIA, waited on standby, was the last standby person selected, went out to plane -- ended up being the exact same frigging plane I got off of two hours earlier; dozed sorely until Denver where Brian picked me up and brought me home to two dozen roses and a good night's sleepSo we get back to me sitting under my Happy Light, a full-spectrum lamp I use to regulate my circadian rhythm -- which helps to make me tired when I should be so I can sleep without chemicals and wake up with energy. It is wonderful to be back to Brian and free refillable water in restaurants, but I could not be more satisfied with these last three weeks. I'm halfway through typing up my handwritten journal so I'll probably make a long entry with that whenever I finish it. Rupert Brooke wrote a poem a hundred years ago that expresses the feeling of the daily grind when adventure and intensity have become the norm:

A young Apollo, golden-haired,
Stands dreaming at the verge of strife --
Magnificently unprepared
For the long littleness of life.

And then came the puking part

I forgot to describe the sickness part. I only went to one of the famed restaurants in Paris, and Jose ordered something he'd not had before -- boeuf tartar, forgive the spelling -- and it laid him out for two days. I tasted it. It looked like completely raw ground beef marbled with fat and the texture matched that, though it tasted a little cooked. We went there for lunch and we were all happy and healthy until Jose slammed awake at about 2am the next morning and sprinted unsuccessfully for the bathroom. I never had it as badly as he did, and it only got me the next afternoon while I visited Florencia's art studio.
Here is how I spent about half my time in Paris -- on a mattress on the floor of the bedroom of Jose and Florencia, my hosts, watching old movies on my laptop and having interesting conversations. We made it out of the apartment for two sets of whirlwind sightseeing, each set about 3 or 4 hours long, and in this fantastically efficient way we managed to knock out the stuff I really wanted to do: we went to Victor Hugo's house, to the Notre Dame, to the cafe where Hemingway and Fitzgerald hung out (which is now too ritzy to serve coffee in the evening, prefering the wine clientelle), and to the Eiffel Tower. Because we only went out at night, all my pictures of paris, with the exception of the ones at the grave yard I visited alone, are taken without flash, at night. I didn't mind terribly much not being able to spend days canvassing art museums in the traditional manner of a visitor in Paris; traveling necessarily implies digestive upset in life as I know it, and this way that experience was gotten overwith in the presence of a good friend with whom I wanted time to converse anyway. One of his friends, a fellow musician studying at the conservatory for which Jose lives in Paris, brought me roses to make me happy, and I because something near deliriously so.
It was a powerful experience to be around such amazing investments of human effort and time. The Notre Dame took 300 years and legions of architects and craftsmen, but the streets are lined with such herculean achievements. It is very strange as a product of the New World for me to walk avenues that were walked two thousand years ago by consciousnesses just like mine. It gives one a sense of... both of obligation and of meaning; if the people before me had burned their lives just sustaining them like I usually do, then there would be no sculpture, no massive feats of cooperation and resources. If I don't bother doing something more than providing for myself and consuming, then when I am dust, I will have missed an opportunity to improve what the next centuries inherit. The sense of meaning is born because I do have the option of creating something that will last, and affecting a woman walking past 1000 years later.

Puking in Paris

1/3/07 Jose’s Apartment, Le Marais area, Paris

Drinking a 33cl Coke in the cold little apartment of my hosts Jose and Florencia, the Brazilians I knew and enjoyed so much in Golden, Colorado. The floor is a red concrete or something that similarly communicates the hard January weather outside, and my native accustomedness to central heating is proving an annoying liability. There are books in four languages about art, music and philosophy lining the walls, and a stained-glass translucent contact paper over the windows that separate us from night on the sidewalks outside. I did not know until this morning that the average height of a building in Paris is six floors, or that the average width of the streets is a third the height of the buildings that line in (or really just seems to be) – for that matter I was expecting to at some point be able to photograph my first step on Parisian earth, but because it is not allowed to walk on grass planted in the squares, I have not yet encountered any earth I am allowed to step on; my definition was going to be ground not placed there, ground not synthetic like street paving or stone – but I think that was a naïve expectation, a result of my having grown up under endless Colorado skies with prairie stretching to eternity.

I am surprised also that I can miss my love so much and still be having such a fantastic time here. The clock on my computer remains trained to the days as they pass for him – it says now 3:51pm, so he is sitting (as am I) in front of a computer screen in a building in a city. I think of him often here – when Jose and I were walking tonight along the stone path that lines the walls of the River Seine, with the Notre Dame towering her impossible Gothic detail into the night above, Brian’s absence was as tangible as his presence should have been. Instead he sits now under florescent light with his charts full of tiny squiggly lines rolled up around him, most probably wishing he weren’t working, but by doing so making it possible for me to have the exquisite luxury of being here. He is the ally I never thought I would have, and that knowledge does not leave me.

Frankfurt to Paris, pictures to come

1/1/07 Von Frankfurt Nach Paris

In the Frankfurt Hauptbanhoff, the main train station, specifically seat 71 in car 267 of train 56 to Paris Est; now rolling backwards as it seems the remainder of my trip will be. The sky is a steely gray and it matches the metal, glass and concrete city to the T. Over the Main River now, pronounced ‘mine’, which is significantly narrower than the New River by Blacksburg. Most of the trees here are deciduous, meaning bare now in early January, and the thick wet air reminds me of leaves on the ground in the Virginia woods. Bernd has made the point that the Virginia climate and wilderness are very like those here in Germany.

The only colorful thing in the city itself seems to me to be the graffiti, which I personally find cheerful – identical in every respect to what rebellious teenagers do in every country I’ve visited. Bernd has told me that all big cities were mostly destroyed in World War II, and that all the ‘old’ city centers were rebuilt to reflect what they originally had been. The history here is simply unfathomably long to my American mind; I just walked out of the cathedral where the emperors of Germany were crowned, the kings of the kings of regions, before the New World was even known to exist by people on this side of the ocean.

The trains are bright red, clean, and very much on schedule. I have not paid for one of the express ones, but nonetheless the houses and woods outside flash by; I’m under the impression even slow trains go 150 km/hr, which at 1.6 km/mile is near 100 miles an hour.

I’ve finished the part of my trip with Bernd’s parents, and I’m going now south to Paris to visit Jose, his girlfriend Florencia, and hopefully Ricardo as well. Perhaps I shall unfold my map of France and guess the cities as they pass. At the moment all I see are fields of close-cut cultivated green on one side, highways with a dotted line separating oncoming lanes (as opposed to the double yellow line with which I’m familiar) and what look like factories, smokestacks billowing white into the slate sky. It is perhaps nearly time to trade my German dictionary for my French one, to get out my Paris guidebook. I’ve six hours on this train, perhaps 3 more with light to see countryside – I suppose I’ll stop writing and gaze out the window for a while…

A new Pledge of Allegiance for the New Year

Today Bernd and I had just finished walking through a castle built (the first time) about 900 years ago, and we were headed down the river valley back to his parents' house when the conversation somehow came around to the American custom of saying the Pledge of Allegiance in schools every morning. I personally disagree strongly with the custom, and most people I've known from other countries find it disconcertingly indoctrinating; people from countries with dictators in their recent history have told me that it reminds them of the propaganda and brain-washing techniques used to keep the populace subdued. If you've not been in a school for a while, it might surprise you too to see it -- even in the hallway people walking will freeze, assume a formal position (hand over heart) and stare up at the nearest flag or the blank wall on the other side of it before solemnly chanting the folowing phrases:

I pledge allegiance to the flag
Of the United States of America
And to the Republic for which it stands:
One nation
Under God
With liberty and justice for all.

My primary objection is that it's firstly a promise to remain loyal to a symbol and a symbol is objectively meaningless, which makes its connotations variable and temporally weak. Swearing lifelong loyalty to a nation (which is obviously the intent of making kids repeat this statement 5 days of every seven, 9 months of every 12, for 12 years) is a very dangerous act too -- Martin Luther King Jr. stated beautifully that it is our moral obligation to defy those laws which are unjust, so promising to eternally support a human institution implies obeying the corrupt as faithfully as the wise, and blindly following the malevolent into their cruelty just as quickly as the kind into their generosity. The Nazi Reich is an excellent example of why this is such a bad idea -- few Americans remember (or ever knew) that Hitler was elected democratically before his power crept into the bitterest and most dangerous insanity, and the progression was slow enough that the normal people (possibly kindhearted, possibly intellengent, precisely like you in your humanity) simply went on promising loyalty, went on following and supporting the system they'd chosen as it slowly descended into treachery.

I decided to compose a pledge I could support, though of course I disapprove of asking people to mindlessly repeat any statement, whether or not they agree with it, without asking them to evaluate it for themselves first. The rhythm leaves something to be desired but I think I'm fairly satisfied with the ideas. Here's my version:

I pledge allegiance to the ideals
Of the United States of America:
To think before believing,
To consider all consequences,
And to act -- today --
With kindness and respect for all.

By ideals I mean the standards of behavior that allowed our nation's foundation to be as strong and benevolent as it originally was, not -- clearly -- the underlying principles of the choices we make now.

There, then, is my pledge for the new year -- my New Year's Resolution -- and if you do me the favor of holding me accountable for my promise, I will thank you. To think before believing, consider all consequences, and to act -- every day -- with kindness and respect for all.

Happy new year!