One Spring
Janet Kuypers
(seven countries in seven days)
started 9/15/16, finished 10/25/16
1. Austria
When walking through the sixty degree
slanted streets in Austria, you understand quickly
why walking Europeans are thinner
than us fat Americans. We drive everywhere,
then pay money to use a gym
to help us lose weight gained from this rich life.
I saw Mozart references everywhere
and it was great to be in Salzburg, the town
where this genius musician was born.
But while looking for a place to eat,
I saw “Salzburger” listed on many diner signs.
I asked if this was a kind of hamburger
and they told me no, it’s a reference
to being from Salzburg. Then I laughed
and said, “I guess Mozart was a Salzburger...”
But being at the Alps, everything was an inclined hike.
I tried to climb a mountain in the snow in my sandals.
So I attempted relief for my aching joints
by resting in the Gastein Curative Tunnel.
You see, this tunnel’s a tourist spot because
miners would feel rejuvenated after working in it
until they realized that the tunnel was loaded with Radon.
And sure, long-term exposure might be bad
but after sweating buckets of water
from laying down in these mines for 20 minutes
you actually felt better, rejuvenated
and ready to climb a mountain tomorrow.
2. Germany
We left Hitler’s home country
to go to Germany’s Dachau, to see one
of the first concentration camps in existence.
Drank beer on the train ride from Munich
(something Hitler would frown upon), and after
seeing Washington D.C.’s Holocaust Memorial —
complete with a train car, a Warsaw ghetto walkway,
glass bins of collected hair brushes, shoes —
I was stoked for the impact of actually being there.
But once was passed under an Arbeit macht frei sign
we walked into vast blank halls with only
occasional spots of original chipping paint.
We’d walk from room to room, each containing
only large hanging posters with occasional images
of data in German and in English. You couldn’t feel
the gravity of life for prisoners in these camps.
Only when we got to the last room and saw
a scale model of the entire grounds as it was
during the Holocaust, well, everywhere we walked that day
was only about one fifth the size of the camp.
That was the only way I saw the monstrous size
of this monstrosity. Later sat at a Munich bar,
and the old German men yelled at us in German
when an American-sounding song played
on the jukebox. I didn’t even know where the jukebox was,
and the bartender yelled at the regulars in German
that she was the one who chose that song.
But looking back, I have to admit
that it was cool to be yelled at in another language
from men on the other side of the planet.
3. Italy
We walked through the remains of Pompeii
after Mount Vesuvius did it’s damage in 79 AD.
After crossing the Tyrrhenian sea
I actually hugged a column in Cicely
from Agrigento’s preserved Greek column ruins.
After circling the Colosseum in Rome
on those cobblestone roads through the Vatican City,
we had bad pizza in Napoli before making our
final stop to party in the watery town of Venice.
The buildings were colorful and the water was everywhere,
stairs went from the sidewalks to the sea,
and for the tourists there was a row of gondolas
waiting to take you on a water ride. But as I’ve said,
this is a tourist trap town, and everything has a price.
The only trinket I bought was a glass globe of grappa,
and really, that stuff tastes awful, and because
we didn’t know if we could take alcohol
over country lines, we bought a bottle of diet soda
to mask this grappa and chug it down
so they wouldn’t confiscate my glass globe.
Of course, no one searched us for contraband,
but we didn’t know better, and it was a good excuse
for drinking that grappa, because I kept that bottle,
and I still look at it, every day, and it makes me smile.
4. France
Saw beautiful buildings in the beautiful city
of Paris, and people were nice to us (even though
we didn’t know a word in French). But we had money,
and currency is the only language we all understand.
Visited the Eiffel Tower, The Louvre, the Notre Dame,
but the one thing I remember the most
is that when sitting at cafés outdoors, tables for two
always had the two chairs not opposite each other,
but facing the street. To people watch.
I’ll still do that here now, if I get the chance. You can
hear someone talking when they’re right next to you,
and this way you can look out, and watch the world.
5. the Netherlands
The architecture in Bruxelles was really amazing,
But in Amsterdam we searched for pot, but it was only
in coffee shops, and coffee’s not the drug for me.
The man at the hotel looked at my passport
with my Dutch name and pronounced it differently,
so we left for the streets to find some nightlife.
We did see some prostitutes on display for business
while posing in literal window boxes of buildings
at eye level when you walk down the street,
but beyond that the bars closed at ten p.m.
(and lucky you, every bar had fewer than four
people inside). So at one bar we ordered
one round of drinks before they closed that cost us
nearly thirty Euros, then our only other option
was to go a Mexican restaurant to get a half liter
of Heineken, as long as we ordered food...
The only food we got was tomato soup, which was
a fitting nightcap for a town most tourists rave about.
And sure, we saw the Anne Frank House
and the Vincent Van Gogh Museum, but at this point,
it was really time to move on.
6. Luxembourg
In a country with too many letters in it’s name
to fit on most maps, this tiny little place tried
to make up for it with culture and history,
which was a relief when the weather became warmer
and for the first time on my trip I was able to
wear shorts. ...And for all of the studying I had done
about different cultures, the one thing
I didn’t learn was that women in European countries
like Luxembourg never — and I mean never —
wear shorts. So here I was walking down the street
and the women looked at me like I was a whore
and business men all gave me a perverted grin.
Mortified and unable to change, we stopped
at a bar for lunch, I tried to hide my legs, and then
a huge flux of male workers came in for lunch.
I mean, I liked Luxembourg, but that last day
all I could do was anything in my power
to hide my legs from the rest of the world.
7. Switzerland
And sure, I might have a Swiss Army knife,
and sure, you might have a thing for chocolate,
but when you get away from the Alps,
which are sixty percent of the land, the terrain
looks like the Midwest United States.
Away from Zurich, the terrain looked like Ohio,
Indiana, Iowa. Same hills, same foliage...
Same expanse, looking for something new. And all
that remained to carry was a big backpack of trinkets
and far too many memories to cherish
before they slip away.
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