So first this was supposed to be a European trip, focusing on the Arctic, with a side trip to Africa. Then it became a Mali trip, with a side trip to Norway. Then it became something else altogether. Why the interest so far north? Well, I’ve got an obsession with the Arctic, and I’m considering writing a travel book on it, so I gotta’ see it in the depth of winter, too, just to know what it’s like. It’s not exactly like I’m chasing the Chukchis in Siberia or anything like that. The west coast of Norway, and Iceland, are the greatest temperature anomalies in the world, with the possible exception of Lima, Peru. The temperature there, right at the Arctic Circle, in the dead of winter, is about the same as Flagstaff, Arizona, cold but tolerable, and much much darker. That’s what I needed to see. That’s the definition of ‘otherworldly’ for me, watching the sun rim the horizon, a few degrees above being summer, a few degrees below being winter. Phenomena like this can give real empirical clues that the old sun gods driving chariots across the sky were a little weirder then the ancients imagined. In reality, however, explaining the actions of Venus’ was probably the bigger clue. Even as late as Marco Polo’s era, readers were astounded that he didn’t fall off down there rounding SE Asia. Columbus read carefully. Anyway, that still doesn’t mean I want to do my big Norway adventure in darkness, so when I got the good Iceland Air rate to Europe with stopover included, that was an easy fix. It’s hard to pack for the Arctic and Africa at the same time, though, so I’m not really prepared for cold and wetness. I tend to put about as many miles on my shoes as my Dad put miles on the tires of his Gremlin, so they’re about falling apart by now. If the sky gets cloudy, my feet start getting wet just out of habit.
So it turned out to be something of a European trip after all. That’s the nice thing about multiple flight segments rather than one long round-trip from Arizona to Africa. Not only can you save money, and get stopovers, but you can cancel out partially and still salvage the trip. Actually, even losing half my Air France flight and buying the one-way on Iberia, I probably still came out cheaper than round-trip Arizona-Africa. Air France just laughed when I suggested that some consideration for a ‘medical emergency’ would be nice, since I’d taken the trouble to cancel my return and all. Maybe I’ll get the frequent-flyer miles anyway. But Europe’s still nice, even with the new weaker ‘bushy’ dollar. It’s hard not to like a place that names its main cities after sausages and mystery meats, e.g. Frankfurt, Hamburg, Vienna, etc. Budget airlines are proliferating like Thai food restaurants, threatening the old state-subsidized flag-carriers and giving real options for budget travel. The only problem is that you miss the scenery in between. This is ominous in an era when the real social and economic gaps in the world are between urban and rural. Our brothers and sister in the outback are in danger of being forgotten. This is especially dangerous in poorer countries that are heavily centralized. Fortunately most of our north European heritage is less like that, probably why it took them so long to show up in the history books. This is the good thing about Internet and advance telecommunications. It allows civilization’s greatest accomplishments to accommodate, and exist in communion with, Nature.
So life starts to take on a certain regularity after a few days, wherever you go. That’s not tourism; that’s traveling. Marseille is no different. I walk down the main thoroughfare of La Canebiere, named for its historical hemp, every day as if it were my own. It always looks different at night. I try to avoid getting hit by the streetcars that are so quiet they sneak right up on you. ‘Desire’ was noisier than that I believe, all clanging and clattering and keeping me awake at night. I check the price of avocadoes every day out of habit, dumbfounded at prices that vary from one to three dollars a pound. There are no wi-fi cafes here, but that doesn’t matter, since I can usually steal a signal from the fancier hotel next door. I check my e-mail and see how work is going for the Dengue Fever concert I’m promoting. I check to see if I’ve got any export business. I check to see if I’ve got the rejection notice for my novel yet. I send out this little message in a bottle as if I somehow know it’ll come back to me with interest paid, in love if not money. I’ve even been reading my junk mail, something I rarely do. I still don’t check to see how Amber1967 looks at 40; that’s a little too spammy for me. I’ve stopped working out every morning to avoid antagonizing my longsuffering kidneys, but that’s probably not a bad idea anyway in a place where showers cost five Euros a pop. I take a long walk or two a day instead, trying to discover new neighborhoods. I stick post-it notes on my laptop as if it were my office. I maintain an intravenous (coffee) drip, so that I won’t fall asleep at my keyboard and wake up to find myself in the Matrix. I’ve learned to eat Nutrella, which I’ve long noticed imported to Thailand, but never given a fair trial. It’s not bad, on bread for breakfast or whenever, even makes a decent cup of hot chocolate.
French TV is all backwards, though, ‘Days of Our Lives’ on at 9am and the good science documentaries on after midnight, but that’s OK. I’m just trying to understand the French. They’ve got Hannah Montana of course, Billy Ray’s achy breaky daughter. ‘Hunter’ re-runs still play here. That’s weird, but not as weird as ‘Alf’ reruns playing in Peru. At least Hunter’s a person. I’m not sure what time the flab-&-abs exercise ads come on. I try to keep up with the Clinton-Obama match-up. According to French TV, les Americains sont fatiguees’ de Bush. Tired of Bush? That’s an understatement. According to another columnist, Obama is the cowboy hero riding in to save the day and secure the happy ending for America and the rest of the world. Maybe they’re right, but I’d take whichever candidate can beat the oil mongers. The French liked Jerry Lewis after all. I go change money, since my hotel takes no plastic and the ATM’s are a rip-off internationally now. They even changed my West African CFA francs, not surprising here in Little Africa I guess, so that’s cool. I’m so blissfully bored I’ve even considered shaving my beard, which I started on the long train ride in Mali, then became attached to. Don’t tell my wife. It’s nice to be able to be bored anywhere in the world. It’s like home, not some border-town curio market with over-zealous salesmen hustling and hassling and drawing lines in the sand between us. I walk the red-light district after dark, listening to the cooing and purring of tired old service workers who probably got too old for Pigalle and came to work the provinces. They’re trying to get all romantic calling out from sleazy bars in dirty alleys. It doesn’t work that way. The desire for youth and beauty are hard-wired into our urges for merges like footnotes to an evolutionary dead end, sacrosanct and inviolable even when we’re just going through the motions. Almost anybody would rather go to Amsterdam and see young filles from anywhere and everywhere ready to get all Germanic for a lot less. Me, I’m just looking for halibut. Boredom can be dangerous.
I feel like Nitiphoom Naowarat, the guy on Thai TV, who travels around the world to check the prices of rice on the shelf and to see if they’re from Thailand. He interviews Thai people around the world as if they were really Chinese who just… don’t go there. He’ll go anywhere that hates America or globalization, so that he can join in the demonstration, donning the local garb and banging a drum. He even got his Ph.D. from Moscow University, but long after the USSR had folded. It’s easy to be Communist when it’s all over. He came in first in the elections for Senator in 2006. He even helped stir up sentiment against Thaksin, so that’s cool. He was doing just fine until a phone conversation was leaked to the Internet of him in a dispute over a half million dollar debt in a five million dollar business deal gone sour. I guess he doesn’t look so revolutionary anymore. But mostly he travels to interesting places, and then does nothing. I like that. What are you supposed to do anyway once bar-hopping is a thing of the past? You find pleasure elsewhere. I’ve seen hepatitis-C friends go through this for years, and now it’s my turn. I may never go back, even when the kidneys are healthier. The thrill of intoxication has slipped a notch or two over the years, thank God. The bars don’t represent a prison so much as a waste of time. There’s only one vice left; fortunately the ulamas OK’d it long ago for halal consumption. I’ll have a double macchiato, espresso with a head of steamed milk. It’s the drug of choice.
