Ireland was fun here's how that went.

Okay so this was fun and here’s how it went.

 

I finished my trip leading season on Friday, October 9th in Tuscany.

 The trip went well and all was good and gravy and I tried to go home and go to sleep but ended up in a van going up into the hills with a really, really silly group of other Thrilling Adventures leaders.

 

We got lost and I claimed to know where we were going and started giving directions in the severe Thrilling Adventures method and everyone was laughing and free and done with taking care of people for a long time and we took turns pretending to be guests and asking the same silly questions that we answer every single day and in that moment it crashed on me that on every trip that I’m having a hard time there are a hundred other Thrilling Adventures leaders having the same silly conversation with someone in Peru or Vermont or China or right here in Italy.

 

We reached the top of a rise and whooped through a roundabout and I had to admit that I had no idea where I was going and someone called the Capo that means boss in Italian also top of hill and he gave us directions and we continued up the hill and arrived at the capo and his smiling Italian landlords handed out glasses of wine and a dozen other Thrilling Adventures vans also whooped in and someone had the idea that we’d do a blind wine tasting and we did that but mainly took pictures and tried not to fall into the Tuscan fall evening.

 

I’m not sure what that means but it made sense when I wrote it and it made sense then so I’ll keep it there above this sentence.

 

All in all there was

A)   a huge table covered with a checkered tablecloth

B)   Unlimited amounts of red wine

C)   An apperitivo plate with sliced meats and bread and olive oils and something else too I can’t remember

D)   a lasagna that was made by the wife of Jeff’s landlord which was brought out by an army of cousins and uncles and nonnos and Zias and finally the woman herself, who was met with thunderous applause.  Ka boom.

E)    Cigarettes smoked and then

F)    A second course of wild boar

G)   A birthday cake sung out and given and eaten

H)   Cheeses and soups and a wild dance party that erupted in the center of the living room and went on for hours

I)     An accordian

J)     A French leader who could play accordion very well

K)   A room full of grand sentimental Italian men who knew every word of every ancient accordion driven Italian song and danced traditional Italian dances slowly to accordion music as cigarette smoke drifted in through the windows and people slowly trailed out and found their way into one van or the other and then we went home down the hill to the leader house.

 

So I had no time to pack because I was well I drank too much red wine and I woke up way way way too late to catch my train but packed like mad and fortunately caught a ride to the train station with two other leaders and missed the train that I really needed to catch to Florence.

 

Oh yeah, I was going to Dublin to see Elliott and Noah. I was catching a train to another train to a shuttle to the airport to a flight to another shuttle to Trinity College in Dublin.

 

I ran into the airport in Bologna and thrust my passport at a woman who was trying to close the check in and she sighed and let me get on the flight and away I was.

 

In Dublin I met Elliott and Noah and Elliott’s’ girlfriend and a whole lot of Canadian girls and one Canadian guy and we taught them kings’ cup in a circle on the floor of a dorm room with two of my best friends from College and suddenly I felt like I was in college again, except I was coming from my job in Italy and Elliott is going to be a doctor and Noah is headed to life in Spain but one thing remained the same.

 

I drew the fucking last king. Again.

 

We ran from the dorms as they became too small for us and wandered out into downtown Dublin.  I was hysterically sleep deprived still and hadn’t had dinner yet but found a burger king as my friends waited in line for the club and came out and ate whoppers until the bouncer grabbed it from me and threw it on the ground because well mate you can’t eat in here but I was almost done so I didn’t mind.

 

We drank and danced and watched the club howl when U2 came on and eventually left and Noah and I found ourselves at a friend of Elliott’s’ and slept.

 

The next day we bought clothes and watched a terrible movie and enjoyed it immensely and went back to the Guinness factory with a sky bar and immaculate views of Dublin and James Joyce quotes on the windows and god damn it why is this always the best pint of Guinness in the world?

 

But it was again.

 

We ate mashed potatoes (mashers! Hahahaha yes) and gravy and more Guinness (apparently, Guinness is mainly an old man drink for the Irish. Huh) and then we were done with Dublin and Elliott had to study so Noah and I grabbed a bus and he tried to play music in the train station but was cheerfully accused of trying to busk by a homeless man and then we got on the train to Galway.

 

 

GALWAY

 

Is neat.

 

On our second day there I wrote a few pages in my moleskin with a nice pen that smears black ink when I accidentally run my hand over the pages to keep them from flipping in the cold sea wind.

 

 

Glasgow Thoughts

 

 

Green gentle explosions of sloping hills craig downward into the coldest looking water that I’ve ever seen and so I decide to write for a bit.

 

We spilled out of a train onto the streets of Glasgow last night and asked passerby where this or that street was and clutched a handwritten map in fingerless gloves and then we met Gob.

 

Gob arrived on an old pink bicycle and glasses and the thickest Irish Accent I’ve ever heard.

 

We showed Gob our map, carefully copied by hand from a lonely planet in a lonely train station in Dublin and Gob regarded us severely then got off his bike.

 

“I’ll show ya. Come.”

 

And off he went, his bike spokes clicking and his wispy white hair flying and Noah and I following warily through the foggy streets of Glasgow.

 

He led us to a hostel, stopping only once to tell us how Ireland was going to shit and then starting off again into fog.  A young hip guy materialized out of a side street and said “Gob” reverently and then was gone. Gob sort of slowed down and looked confused, then said Oh yes hello and then kept walking click click click with his old weird bike.

 

We followed.

 

Our hotel was full so he swore and said come on then so we did and followed him a street or two more to another hostel. He waited patiently outside the new hostel and when I came back to tell him that they had beds for us he only nodded and clicked off and that was the last we saw of Gob.

 

We ate Fish and Chips and met three French guys and tried to go to a concert and failed and so wandered through the streets of Glasgow and obliged our tourist desires and drank spectacular pints of Guinness and Jameson Whiskey on the rocks and Noah had a guitar player play Bob Dylan and then eventually we slept and woke up and missed the one and only bus of the day to the cliffs of Moher but it’s okay we walked through Irish rain and found a wine shop and a hidden path to a massive hill green green green that ends in flying sea cliffs and wine from Spain and Bread and cheese and these pages here fluttering wildly in the cold Irish wind and Noah sketching in his book which brings me to here

Now.

 

Glasgow is neat.

 

 

…That night we went out with a German girl and a bored Canadian girl and drank yes more Guinness and found ourselves in a small bar with a group of fantastic human beings sitting on a corner bench playing traditional Irish music no stage or mics or anything just two beautiful women playing violins with subtle smiles on their faces and a mandolin virtuoso and a guy hunched over a hand drum and an acoustic guitar and man they were on a tear and I finally stopped paying attention to the bored Canadian girl which was great and just watched them tear until it was time to go and so we went.

 

The next day we finally made it to the cliffs of Moher and slept through an endless Ireland postcard in the back of a deserted bus and then woke up and watched the country really be as lush and rolling and green as it was supposed to be.

 

The cliffs are a worthy tourist sight – they’re bigger and slopyer and giganticer and more magnificent then any picture can tell you. We spent a few hours meandering on cliff edges and marveling at everything then ate baked potatoes in a hobbit hole then took the bus back north and grabbed our clothes out of lockers and then left Galway behind us in the back of the last bus of the night north.

 

Noah has a friend Fitzy in the North who lives in Donegall and we thought that meant Donegall town but as we discovered in Donegall town no it doesn’t Donegall is a county too and we were two hours from his house, a cheerful phone voice told us.

 

So we found a hostel in Donegall town and shot the shit with a girl who was leaving a life for another one and drank tea and it was rainy outside and then went to sleep and the next day took another bus and ate Pub food and drank more beer and found ourselves right outside the small town of Muff.

 

Yes, there is a small town of Muff. I met someone who claims that they, a seaside town, have a diving club.

 

There you have it; the Muff Diving Club.

 

Fitzy and his good friend Gramn and their good friend Shamus took us to bars and let us stay in Gramn’s Oceanside cottage where we made sandwiches and rashers and watched old Clint Eastwood movies while the waves crashed outside and we drove at high speeds through northern Ireland and ran gleefully across the Giants’ Causeway in a rainstorm and then hit the bars and Noah performed a Johnny Cash song and then I joined him for some Beatles and The DJ started announcing between sets that the girls in front fancied us and boy were they a whole lot older than us and so we escaped to a club where I met a pretty Irish girl but she stole my pajamas and slept while I packed and Noah drank coffee but went to sleep anyways and someone was supposed to pick me up at six in the morning but they overslept and didn’t show so I made Noah wake up and we borrowed Gramns car and so we jumped in and figured out how to drive on the other side of the road and drank coffee and made our way to Belfast and then right there at the airport the car died and a policeman and I pushed the car down the drop off zone while Noah started the car in second and I hooted and the policeman nodded and Noah honked and I was off to Venice to start the Thrilling Adventures staff ride and Noah was off to Spain and that was that for Ireland. 

Slovakia is done!

Ok, so I made a grave digression from Robbie's movie week today.  

I'm back in the States, and have decided that before I do anything at all, I'm going to unwind for a week solid, and do nothing productive. I haven't left my house in days, my phone is turned off, and I'm only leaving to vote tomorrow.

I'm watching movies for a week straight (I only have a few days left). 

Well, I was doing fine until today, when one thing led to another and I got to writing and finished the Slovakia blog. 

It's done.  I think it's like 40 pages long total and unedited and sloppy but it's totally finished and uploaded and everything. 

Just like before, it reads from top to bottom, and ends with part six: the finale. (You might have to click on "older posts" at the bottom of this page to get to The Finale)

I'll start on some new stuff next week. 

I have to go now, it's raining and I have a few movies to watch. 

Whop!

Updates!

Allright! 

I'm back - sorta!

After leading in Croatia for June, and then Glacier (Montana) for July and August, I'm back in Tuscany for the fall. I just led an eight day trip in Tuscany, then got my first real vacation - two weeks. 

aaaaaaaah yes. 

So I'm down in Puglia (heel of the boot) hanging out at our leader house here to unwind a little, go to the beach during the day, and get some writing done.

So earlier this summer I was talking to a guest about the amazing thing that is Google: 

"Oh yeah, you can find anything on google! After a trip, I like to google people from the trip, even the leaders, and see what sorts of things they're involved in - very cool!"

This was a little alarming, so I took my blog down for the summer.  It hadn't occurred to me that people other than like ten of my friends would ever be reading this blog.

It's back up now, with a pen name. My name on this blog is now Robin, and I'm in the process of changing a lot of the other names on here.  I'd just rather do that than have to think about what stories I should or shouldn't put up here. 

Also, I like to swear. A lot.

The company I work for is now 'called' haha "Thrilling Adventures." 

Everything else is true, except of course the poetry and occasional work of fiction (these are obvious).

I sat down today and took a shot at finishing the "Hungary, Slovakia and Poland" story from the trip I led there in August 2007 - and didn't make it. Too many stories to tell.  I got about halfway through (it's looking to be really, really long)(not the first time I've had to say that - haw!) and posted what I have so far. 

All of the blogs on this page are in order from Newest to Oldest, so the ones I most recently finish are closest to the top, with the exception of the Slovakia story, which I structured (gave it false post dates) so it reads from Chapter one to the finish, top to bottom, so it can be read more easily. 

For the Slovakia Blog, I wrote the Prologue last summer (2007) right after the trip ended, and Part One in May 2008. Parts Two, Three and Four are all new today (9/13/08). I'm not going to edit at all until the whole thing is done, so sorry if it's sloppy.

I'll try to get the rest of that story done this week, but I know how I am, so we'll see -  I'll always put it on the "what are you doing now" part of facebook when I put up a new post.

ah rooh

Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Oh My: Prolouge

Oh this is the Beginning of The Great and Nimble Tale of Robin epically voyaging across three countries faced with such perils such as the villainously laughing Polish border control guard or lightning storms over the Grand Tatras or having to once again return to a country where a pint of beer costs more than one Dollar –

Which is the case in Eastern Europe! A Pint of Beer costs one dollar in Slovakian bars, a dollar-fifty in Hungarian bars, and a little more than that (almost two dollars) in Poland.

There are Parts of Slovakia where the pints are more like fifty cents. Fifty cents!

I would be a terrible drunk in Slovakia.

But I digress!

Let's see where this darn story goes. Right now I'm sitting in a corner of the perpetually busy and laughingly inefficient Milan Airport, having not slept in let's see the last time I woke up was 26 hours ago and my connection to Florence is seeming not to happen due to a cluster of men in green Air Italia jackets viciously gesturing at each other behind the counter, most of them on cell phones. I don't mind though, I missed this place a bit.

I was up there for almost exactly one month. I flew into Budapest from Florence in the middle of the night, spent a lot of Thrilling Adventures' money shuttling around in Taxis looking for a SINGLE HOTEL ROOM JESUS ISN'T THIS SUPPOSED TO BE A PRETTY BIG TOWN? But lo and behold I finally found it and all was well, I handed my passport to the surly fellow standing behind the desk of the elegant (read: a dive) hotel Atlas, went upstairs and crashed.

The next day I followed the simple (read: Insanely complicated) directions that a Thrilling Adventures guide had posted on our website on how to get to our leader hotel in the town of Visegrad, a suburb of Budapest. I took a taxi to a train station. I got on the wrong train. I got on the right train. I rode on this train for an hour. The conductor told me that I had the wrong ticket. I purchased the right ticket. I got off the train and jumped into another taxi. I talked with Janus the Taxi driver about his son's eating habits for forty five minutes, I finally reached the hotel…and was the only Thrilling Adventures guide there.

Upon further investigation on the Internet, I discovered that I was indeed the only Thrilling Adventures guide around at the time. There were two guides and a van support driver leading the biking trip which was currently in Poland (8 hour drive away), and two guides leading the walking trip, which had just finished and was on its way back from Poland.

I was supposed to embark on a 6 day familiarization (FAM) trip in three days, and I had no van. Huh. I wrote an email to one of the girls leading the biking trip and went and had an amazing, crisp beer. Then I had another one.

Then I had a really, really long nap.

At this point I think I was totally in love with Hungary, especially as I was no longer…hungry.

In Hungary.

…

…whoop!

(those who know me should have seen this pun coming a mile away. It was Big, it was Ugly, but at least it was Well-Fed.

You know.

Not Hungry!

…

…moving on)

After my nap, I woke up and shuffled downstairs to the front desk.

"Oh yes," she says, remembering something, "Your passport number please?"

"Of course," I mumble blurrily, and start digging around my extremely masculine man-purse for my passport…gosh I could have sworn it was around here some…where…oh shit.

I had never gotten it back from the surly man at the hotel atlas. I promptly called the hotel. Hello, I said. Had I left my passport there?

"Of course," he said.

I think he was just choosing the almost-correct word in English (his wasn't so good) there, but at the moment, a huge trip away from Budapest, with no car, and the urgent need to cross the Hungary-Slovakia border in two days, I was angry.

I wanted to run to Budapest, shout "OF COURSE?!? I've GOT A COURSE FOR YOU-IN PAIN!" And then I'd pull off my clothes in like one smooth ripping motion, and I'd be wearing some WWF wrestling costume, and we would do fierce, choreographed battle right there.

However, this was not to be, and I just listened as he offered to send it to me. How long does that take, I asked? Oh, he said, one day.

Ok, I said.

It was right as I was going to sleep that night that I had a moment of doubt. Here I was putting a whole lot of trust in that guy, and a whole lot of trust in the Hungarian postal system. It was Sunday, and I had to leave on Tuesday afternoon for Slovakia on my FAM. And five days later I would be back, and leaving again to drive van support on the 9-day BHPQ (Biking Hungary-Poland Casual) Thrilling Adventures trip. If that passport happened to get lost, I would be really, really out of work for a while, and Thrilling Adventures would probably have to bring in someone else to drive the van support, and they'd probably have to fly them in from somewhere else in Europe, and they were going to be really, really, really not happy with me.

I needed to call the hotel Atlas first thing in the morning, tell them to absolutely NOT send my passport in the mail, and that I was coming to get it personally.

I just had to figure out how to do that without a car and over a hundred kilometers between us.



THE NEXT DAY-FAM EVE

I woke up at seven forty five am to go grab some breakfast in time to call the hotel right at eight am, before they mailed my passport into the potentially endless labyrinth of the Hungarian mail system.

I got on the Internet to find the number of the hotel (as the lady who had dialed it for me the day before was gone, and the morning clerk seemed to only know "Excuse me?" in English (keep in mind I don't speak Hungarian at all).

Here's the thing with Hungarian hotels. You can't directly find their webpage by searching on Google. All you can find is a reservation service for the whole city.

I tried that. It just rang. And rang. I looked again on the webpage. Despite the fact that the hotel Atlas has a 24 hour desk clerk, the reservation service only opens at nine.

Fuck.

Well, I guessed that I could wait on that. I checked my email, and found an email waiting for me from the Trip Specialist of the region.

Robin, (it said) don't rent a car for your fam. You need to wait for us to come back with the van-you can use that. Also, you need to get back a day early from the fam, which means you only have 5 days to do the 6 day fam. See you tomorrow!

Hmmm. I know (by this point) that this means my fam will probably be 12-14 hour days for five days. Siiiiiigh.

Well, I needed to get a bike, because I needed to get to Budapest to get that passport. I read further, and discovered that the Thrilling Adventures equipment for the region was being kept in a huge storage box behind the Hotel Silvanus, a 10 minute drive from where I was.

I asked the front desk lady where that was. Oh, she said, it's very close-just up the road on top of Black Mountain.

…

…did she just say "Black Mountain?"

indeed she did.

It turns out that I needed to hike up to Black Mountain.

Siiiiiiiiigh.

An hour later I emerged at the top of the trail and found the storage box, opened it up and grabbed a bike, then rode back down the hill. I went back into reception and called the reservation service (it was now 930).

…Still no answer. Fuck. I had no choice but to ride the bike into Budapest-before they mailed my passport.

I asked the front desk person how to get to Budapest by bike. She gave me a crazy look (it was really, really hot outside) and told me that it would take me all day to ride there and back (this is a different lady from the 'excuse me' lady now). I told her dammit, I don't care, just tell me how. She did, I ran to my room and got all my stuff ready, and came back (it's now ten am). I wanted to call that reservation service one more time. I called…it rang…someone picked up!

"Do you speak English?" I asked.

"Of course," she said.

I fought down my initial urges to yell at her and went on to ask for the number of the hotel Atlas. She sounded irritated.

"I'm sorry sir, this is a RESERVATION service."

"I know, but I just need the number for the hotel atl…"

"I'm sorry sir, I don't have that information."

"But you guys must have…"

"I'm sorry."

"Oh…well, thanks, then."

She hung up.

I sat there a second, looking at the phone in my hand. The reception clerk looked up brightly and asked what was wrong. I told her, and she said, "Oh, the hotel Atlas? I have the number right here!"

…

…I went through a number of interesting emotions at this point. Pushing them down, I called the hotel.

"Hello," I said, "My name is Robin McEwan, and I left my passport
there yesterday. Is it still there?"

"Yes, it is here," the surly clerk said.

"OH MY GOD YES" I yelled.
"Sir?" The hotel clerk asked.

"Ummm, anyways, I am coming to get it today. Don't send it, please."

"Of course," said the clerk.

I was in too good a mood to care.

I hung up the phone and walked on and started riding. 20 minutes later, I was passing through the town of szentendre and saw a Thrilling Adventures van….it was the walking trip crew! I pulled over and talked with them a while, and more specifically asked them if I could take their van into Budapest to get my passport. One of them wanted to come and we zipped into Budapest, ate dinner and ran around, and then, well fed (not hungry!) and content, we stopped at the hotel Atlas to get my passport.

My passport query was met with a blank stare. He had no idea what I was talking about. My good mood rapidly fell. He made some phone calls, first talking to the person whom I had spoken with on the phone earlier that day.

It turns out that when I called, the clerk had immediately remembered that he had seen my passport around after I had left. He didn't, though, make any attempt to find it after I called. In the meantime, someone else at the hotel was taking it to the post office and mailing it.

It was gone.

Huh.

I wandered back out, and in a bit of a dejected silence we drove back to the hotel.

The next day I woke up early and did all the bike routes for day one of our trip on my bike (pretty amazing, hilly, forested rides, actually), and checked in with my hotel to see if the passport had arrived.

It hadn't.

I rode up to the storage unit and waited for the girls to arrive. I rehearsed what I was going to tell them: Oh, I didn't really need to do the FAM anyways, I'm GREAT with driving routes that I've never driven before! (haha!)…or something like that.

They drove up, and before I could say anything, they were like, oh, and we just stopped at the hotel-they were saying something about your passport arriving?

FUCK YEAH!!!!

So I grabbed one of their vans and took off on my fam.

It's a little maddening driving 12 hours a day and spending like a week without really talking to anyone. After a while, you sort of start talking to yourself in the car, then you talk about "Oh great, now I'm talking to myself," which is even worse.

However, the fam was pretty rad. I drove through northern Hungary and crossed the river into Slovakia, drove the tiny, countryside routes through southern Slovakia (not an atm to be found for 100s of kilometers of towns), hung out drinking cheap beer and wandering around tiny mining towns in the foothills of the Tatras, got amazingly lost a handful of times, (one of those times an hour up a logging road in the mountains where I only realized that I was lost as I came across a logging team that was totally amazed that I had found my way there) had dinner with a bunch of polish girls, and got paid to spend two days hiking the spectacular mountain hikes that we take our guests on.

Krakow is the most amazing city ever. More on this later.

I drove 8 hours back to the trip start (from Krakow to Budapest), ate some pizza and had a quick dinner meeting with the two leaders of the trip (on this particular trip I was not a leader-I was van support, which means I mainly just did was they told me to do, and drove luggage from one hotel to another and spent my nights learning about the culture and history of the three countries so that when I led the trip the next week it would look like I knew what I was doing.)

The trip ran pretty smoothly, so I don't have a lot to report. The guests were happy, the rides were amazing, nothing really went wrong.

…Which is probably because all the wrong things were waiting for me. The next trip was the most chaotic event of my entire life.

Hey! I'm Gonna finish the Slovakia Blog: Part One

So here it is, finally, the final installment of last years’ Slovakia piece.

Over and over I sat down to write this, and it wasn’t coming out like I wanted (that’s what she said…oh!) so I’d put it off, and this would happen or that would happen, and well you know now it’s been almost a year, and I’ve got this new blog page, and I think before I do any more new stuff (I’ve got some crazy trips coming up in Italy and then Croatia and then …Montana…and I’m sure I’ll have some funny tales to tell) I should really hammer this out (that’s what she said? Does that work?).

So here we are. Just kick back, pour yourself a nice glass of wine, lounge in your comfy chair, and prepare to be mesmerized by the tale of Robin and the villainously laughing Polish border guard, gasp out loud at the thrilling moment of Robin and the disappearing Slovakian water bottles, BARELY CLING TO YOUR CHAIR at the most fantastic almost loosing of van keys that has ever happened on the outskirts of a Gypsy Village!

(Jesus, is this guy just going to tell the story or what?)

So I'll see how far I can get tonight, and then (just like with Bali) I'll add stuff every few days until it's done.

And so,

So let’s see…I guess in the last blog about Slovakia, I wrote about when I first reached Budapest, and went just to the start of the trip that I was leading through Slovakia, Poland and Hungary with another leader named Kaitlyn.

Right at the end, I mentioned that I drove van support before I actually got to lead the trip with Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn was leading with another girl named Renee, and I was their bitch…I mean van support driver. I don’t have that many stories from that trip (it passed pretty smoothly-probably because I wasn’t leading it), except this one:

THE TALE OF THE VILLIANOUSLY LAUGHING POLISH BORDER GUARD

So one night, in the southern Polish town of Zakopane…

(cool, cool city. It’s a backpacking paradise, nestled right against a huge series of mountains and trees and ski lifts and razor-sharp air, and lots and lots of cows. Outdoor gear shops everywhere and a gigantic, pedestrian-only street running down the center, stuffed with outdoor bar patios and restaurants and street performers and people hawking fried cheeses-some in shapes like goats-and other local wares. It was always a trip to dodge thousands of Polish people walking arm in arm while the aromas of all of these things threatened to merrily dance you into the cobblestones. I dug it)

…I had been given the night off as the van support driver while the two leaders took the guests to a restaurant. I was sitting in our hotel room, going through my extremely masculine man-purse, when I found an envelope that one of the leaders had handed me early that morning, as we were leaving our last Slovakian hotel, headed for Poland.

“Hey Robin, make sure to tip the hotel porters, ok?”

“No problem!” I said, assuming an air of deft competence and assurance. I took the envelope, put it on my clipboard, took care of finishing the luggage-load for the morning, and…didn’t tip the porters.

So here I am, sitting in my hotel room in Zakopane as rain begins to pour outside, holding a slightly moist envelope in my hand, thinking about what a surprise the porters at that last hotel in Slovakia had, and realized what had to be done.

I had to spend my night off in Zakopane hand-delivering the tip to the porters of the hotel Kolowrat. This tip translates into roughly 10 dollars.

I ran out to my van in the pouring rain and starting driving, getting lost a few times as I kept forgetting which exit to the city would take me back to the Slovakian border. Finally I found it, driving down a desolate road through a towering, pitch black forest, wondering if I indeed had found the right road, or if I was headed out towards certain and violent death, probably at the hands of a gentle-looking farm worker who would offer me a bed-“It’s nothing special but you’re welcome to it, stranger.” And I’d wake up and my car would be gone and I’d find all the skeletons in some closet, and I’d have to flee, panicked, into the Polish countryside.

And I really wanted to avoid all that.

So finally I made it to the border, crossed it, and finished the short drive from the border to the hotel Kolowrat, where we had stayed the night before. This hotel is beautiful, in a weird, communist-architecture sort of way, with a lobby that has some views that are, well, stunning (Oh! Check out the picture at the bottom of this page. That’s me giving a morning route rap in the Kolowrat lobby).

The hotel is built on a grassy knoll that slopes down to the base of a cluster of craggy mountains that explode from the ground up into the clouds. The hotel decided to enhance this by putting the worlds’ ugliest statue in front of this scene, so it’s hit and miss. But still a pretty cool place.

I didn’t take any of this in at this point; I was on a mission. I entered the gigantic lobby from the rain, clopping across the tile as the only person around. I had to wait a while for the receptionist to wander out and help me, and when she finally did, all I did was give her the tip in an envelope and walk back out, leaving her sort of baffled but (in my mind) touched that I had done all this work to make sure the porters got their ten dollar tip.

Now it was really pouring as I drove back to the Polish border. I pulled up to the little gate and handed the little bald Polish man my passport.

He took it and closed the door. Five minutes passed. (This is normal, as we are a bunch of Americans driving French vans in Poland. Seems a little weird to anybody). He then slid the door open and demanded the registration. I gave him this; he took it and closed the door. Five minutes passed. (Not so normal anymore). He then slid the door open again and demanded my….international driver’s license.

A VERY SPECIAL NOTE ON INTERNATIONAL DRIVERS LICENCES

You go to AAA anywhere in the states. You give them 10 dollars and show them your drivers license and whatever passport-sized picture of yourself you’ve got, and they give you the fakest, least real-lookingist ID card that I’ve ever seen. I’ve shown them to Police in Italy who have no idea what they are, so at this point I no longer carried mine with me.

Ummmm, I said….I have a…California drivers’ license.

He looked at me for a few seconds, then threw his head back…

And laughed. It was a short burst of laughter that I was hearing for the first time in the real world, a type of laughter that is only reserved for villains in movies after they’ve been told by (usually) James Bond that they’ll never get away with this.

He laughed for exactly three seconds, and then his head snapped back to its overly serious normal level.

He closed the window.

Five minutes passed.

Men in army getup came and went from the little office. There was talking and pointing at me.

There was lots of shaking of heads. I began to regret getting the porters their ten dollars.

Finally the little window opened again and the little man poked his head back out.

“We decide…” he says, in a slowly lifting drawl, “you can go.”

Yes, I thought. Yes.

He handed the passport and registration back. I tried to grab it, but he held a grip on it the whole time, so we paused, having a sort of passport handshake in the midst of the pouring Polish/Slovakian rain.

“But if police pull you over, and you no have international drivers’ license,” he said menacingly, and let go of the passport to demonstrate a person getting handcuffed. He then nodded severely.

Ok, I said, and drove on, and damn it I was finally back in Poland.

I would have had a pretty quick drive back, too, if it wasn’t for the 10 mph tractor that I had to follow back through the forest to Zakopane.

I hope those porters spent the best ten dollars of their life.

(Click on "older posts" below this to finish the story)

Hey! I'm Gonna finish the Slovakia Blog: Part Two

Pow so Van Support was over.

 At the end of my van support trip, in Krakow (did I mention that this may be the coolest city in the world?), Renee caught a flight out of there (she was working in Prague next) and Kaitlyn and I drove the vans back to Budapest (which takes about seven hours) and got ready for our trip.

 We had four days ‘off’ but we spent them all working. We made copies. We got a broken van fixed. We made maps and plans and drank beer and went on runs.

 We did food runs for the trip, we washed the heck out of our vans, we prepped the bikes.

 

A SPECIAL NOTE ON BIKE PREP

 This is the time before the trip that you go through every mechanical aspect of the bikes, to make sure that they’re running smooth as silk. I’ve been over this before, but in Tuscany we do this on the Thrilling Adventures warehouse floor, surrounded by bike stands, bike tools, the whole shebang.

 In Budapest, there was just the Big Red Box outside the hotel Silvanus.

 We pulled the bikes from the Box and began to work as storm clouds rolled in. There was nowhere inside the Box for us to work, so we worked outside, in the parking lot.  After an hour of work (bike prep takes a long time when there are like 24 bikes to prep), it began to rain-and rain hard. Kaitlyn and I looked at the storm clouds, moved our gear underneath a tree with particularly big leaves, and kept working through the storm.

 There was no other time to do it. 

 Every now and then, when we’d finished our work for the day, Kaitlyn would suggest going on a run or bike ride.

 I only took her up on this offer once, because I hurt myself-badly-trying to keep up with her through the green valleys of the Danube Bend. It turned out that she was this like crazy exercise guru, and liked to do runs for like THREE HOURS.

 I never made that mistake again. I’d do my runs by myself, thanks. (Also, that way I could listen to Andrew W.K. while I ran, and give passing old Hungarian women Andrew W.K. looks, which must be rather frightening).

 Our van support driver arrived at 11 at night before the trip rolled. He was a huge, sprightly Irish guy named Liam who had been living in San Francisco for seven years.

 He made lots of Irish jokes and, in typical Irish fashion, was a charming motherfucker. (Not to stereotype the Irish. I just, well, have never really met a young Irish guy who isn’t sort of charming. Um…) We had some pints and pizzas (Hungarian Pizza: Actually pretty Damn Good) going over the plans with Liam and headed to bed.

 

DAY ONE

 

We were up at six o’clock sharp to get the routine cracking. I hopped in the van that had been loaded with snacks, gear, and all the bikes and drove it to the town of Szentendre, a cool little riverside hamlet right on the Danube (and a two-hour boat ride north of Budapest).  

The idea was that Kaitlyn and Liam were going to head into Budapest and meet the guests at the Hotel International. Liam would load all the luggage into his van and take off for our night one hotel, Kaitlyn would then board a private boat with all twenty three guests, then spend two hours on the boat pointing out sights on the river and giving talks about the upcoming nine days. They would get off the boat in Szentendre and meet up with me at the dock, then we would walk together to a cool stone courtyard to find all of their bikes gleaming in the sun, snack tables and water bottles and everything set up.

Oh yes, we’re very good.

At least, we’re supposed to be…

 I arrived at Szentendre and unloaded all the bikes, set up the snacks, helmets, etc (They all are supposed to go in little bins that have signs that say aggressive things like “ENERGY BARS: EAT BEFORE YOU BONK, DRINK BEFORE YOU GET THIRSTY, REST BEFORE YOU GET TIRED!”)

 

A VERY SPECIAL MESSAGE ABOUT THE WORD ‘BONK.’

 

It doesn’t just mean have sex. Really! There’s this really nerdy bike usage of the word that means “to run out of energy ‘cause you need to eat something.”

…which I guess could be sexual.

cough

 

...I finished with all of that stuff, then jumped in the van (it was raining again) to study a sheet covered with local history before the boat arrived with Kaitlyn  and the guests. (In the history I learned, there was a castle being blown up involved. I can’t remember a whole lot else at this point.)

 The guests rolled in and we helped them get their bikes all ready to go. All the guests went in to eat lunch and I was supposed to watch all the bikes and stuff and I got distracted helping a guest (Let’s call her Mary) with her bike.

 “FUCK! FUCK THIS FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT!” Mary would scream into the otherwise tranquil morning, her new bike computer popping out of the piece that was supposed to hold it. “Maybe….try it like this?” I would suggest, picking the computer off the ground. “Ok,” she’d grumble, taking the small black computer part from my hands. Moments later it would fly off again. “MOTHERFUCKER!” Mary would scream, as I went for the piece on the ground. “FUCKING CUNT!"

Another guest, Jerry, turned to Kaitlyn  at this point and said “Thrilling Adventures might be losing my business pretty soon.”

Mary and I finally got the bike computer installed, and then I walked her to lunch.

Another guest then came over in the restaurant and yelled at me for a while about leaving her stuff unattended in the courtyard so I made up a story about this crack team of security guards that were watching our stuff for us, and that satisfied her and she wandered back out. I went out to watch the bikes at this point.

All the guests got on the road, Kaitlyn  set to work rapidly cleaning up all of our tables, and I hopped on my bike after all the guests had left...except Mary. I asked Mary if she wanted to ride with me a bit, and she consented.

We had to get off our bikes for a little while to walk through a cobblestoned part of Szentendre, and then we came to a part where we could ride again. I mentioned this to Mary and hopped on my bike. 

I had been riding for a few seconds when I realized that she wasn’t with me at the time.  I stopped and looked back. She was struggling with her clip-in pedals (you know, when bikers are wearing those funny shoes that have clips on the bottom that actually clip into the bike pedal), so I rode back and drank water and waited. She was getting all angry again. Man, this woman could swear. It wasn’t so much her word choice (I’ve heard the “F” word before. Hell, I use it), it was the sheer, spectacular intensity, frequency, and volume with which this woman would swear when frustrated. I’ve never seen anything like it. 

 “FUCK!” She yelled, trying to get the clip on her shoe to slide into the pedal. She put her foot down for balance for a few moments, and then tried to shove off …

Let me take a moment, before the following disaster, to clarify something: you have to clip in while you’re moving forward, ‘cause if both feet are clipped in, then you can’t have them on the ground for balance. To get yourself “unclipped,” you have to move your foot sideways on the pedal, which is not always the most instinctive thing to do while you’re about to crash or need to put your foot down quickly. 

So Mary Crashed. She was clipped in on one side, and was trying to get her foot in the other side, and it just wouldn’t go in.*  I was sitting on my bike behind her, and had the buttinbiketights point of view she she went over, slowly and agonizingly, onto the pavement.

 FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!

 

…was about how the fall sounded. 

 She jumped up and scorched the very surface of the earth with a remarkable spray of bad words. I didn’t ask if she was ok (that’s one of those falls that hurts your pride more than anything else), I just waited a bit, and then told her a story about when I went over slowly and agonizingly a few trips before. This made her cheer up a bit (at least she stopped swearing at insanely high volumes) and we rode on.

 I got a bit ahead of her at some point. I was riding along, enjoying the brisk-just rained feel to the air, when I came to a part of our typed out directions that said, “walk your bike around the car barrier and continue on the bike path.”

 When we wrote the directions, there was a barrier. Now, the barrier was gone, i.e. the guests would be looking for a turn that wasn’t there.

 Siiiiiiiiigh.

 I rode around the bike path area, rounding up vaguely confused bike riders, passed Liam who was waiting at our first shuttle spot, then Kaitlyn , who was at the second shuttle spot, and then rode into the hotel with the rest of the riders, riding up the last hill with a cool European couple (we almost never get Europeans on our trips, who don’t understand why Americans would need so much help to be on vacation. Well, we just do, ok? Geez.)

That night we had a big welcome dinner, during which I was supposed to give a talk about the logistics of the trip. I had taken meticulous notes that I was going to use to give my talk, and promptly forgot to bring them with me...so I winged it. I actually did pretty well, and sat next to Mary at dinner, who was now cheerfully eating ice cream and telling profanity laced lesbian stories to a few of our more conservative guests. 

After dinner, Kaitlyn  and I hit the kitchens to prep our picnic lunch for the next morning (it can take HOURS to prep a Thrilling Adventures picnic, which is pretty fancy) and hit the sack around midnight.

 So far, so good. Day Two is when I started making mistakes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 *That’s what she said. Oh!

 

Hey! I'm Gonna finish the Slovakia Blog: Part Three

DAY TWO

Kaitlyn and I were up at 530 am, groggy and disheveled and stumbled downstairs to put the finishing touches on our pack lunch spread for the next day. We promptly lost control of the spread (Kaitlyn was all about overly ambitious spreads, and soon I found myself building a waterfall of meats and cheeses, using an elevated series of boxes and aluminum foil). The guests came out of breakfast way, way before we had told them we would be ready, and began making themselves sandwiches without respect to the damage that they were doing to my delicate cascades of ham.

Suddenly all twenty-five of them were in our pack lunch area with a mammoth series of requests. We were frantically trying to stay on top of all of the requests as they arose while continually restocking parts of the pack lunch extravaganza when Liam cheerfully arose from behind a lake shaped veggie platter and told me that hey – he had loaded all of the luggage into the van and trailer – was he cleared to leave to deliver everything to the next hotel?

I assumed a look of deft competence (I do this all the time – ahahahahaha) and told him that yes, Liam, you’re cleared to go. He nodded and cut behind a volcano of M&Ms to leave the building.

Kaitlyn went into another room with all the guests to deliver a route rap about the days’ bike ride. I was supposed to clean up our mammoth production, then run outside and drive the van (loaded with all the guests’ bikes) to the town of Estergom.

A NOTE ON THE CORRECT WAY TO SAY ‘ESTERGOM’ OUT LOUD

Angrily, with emphasis on the TER and GOM part.

Es-TER-GOM!

Actually, this is just how I say it.

…. Anyways, in Estergom, I was supposed to take all 25 bikes off the roof racks and display them so it looks nice, then Kaitlyn and the guests would arrive in a bus and see our bikes all nicely displayed in front of a spectacular river and it would be great. Meanwhile, Liam would be well on his way to drop all the guests’ luggage in the next hotel, then backtrack on the route in time to provide extra support for the afternoons’ difficult series of hills.

I started working on disassembling the massive jungle of lunch supplies and M&Ms when Kaitlyn poked her head in the door.

“Hey Robin – you’ve got to get out of here. The bus is coming in five minutes, and you have to have all those bikes displayed before we get there.”

“But….the snack table…”

“I’ll do it.”

I took a slice of ham and ran into the parking lot, jumped in my van and drove off.

After about ten minutes on the road, I got a call from Kaitlyn.

“Robin – where the heck is Liam?”

“Oh – I told him he could leave to deliver the luggage.”

(sounds of muted swearing)

“Kaitlyn?”

“He’s supposed to wait to take all the snack stuff with him.”

“…ah.”

“….”

“sigh. Hold on”

I drove on a little bit, wondering how we were going to transport several collapsible tables, tons of silverware, bowels, plates, leftover ham waterfall remnants, etc etc, to our next hotel – the Hotel Salamander in central Slovakia, 120 Km away. I couldn’t do it, or there would be no bikes when the guests arrived in Estergom. Liam couldn’t do it, or he’d never have time to drop the luggage off and make it back in time to offer support on the afternoon hills. Kaitlyn could hardly bring piles of ham on the bus with the guests.

Huh.

I was in the process of pondering all this when Liam passed me at probably three hundred miles an hour, going back to the hotel. I gaped at him. He shrugged. He was gone.

I called him.

“Oh yeah man, I guess I have to go back to get all the snack stuff.” He whistled a bit, and then a note of gentle reproach entered his voice. “Kaitlyn called.”

“Ah.” I said, wondering how this was all going to work out.

“Don’t worry, man,” he said. “I’ll make it work.” (Somewhere in the background was the sound of the sound barrier being broken.)

“Uh…Ok,” I said.

“Cheers!” He said.

“Uh…cheers,” I said.

He hung up.

I arrived at the staging area shortly thereafter, and I pulled the ladder along with me as I jumped from the van…

A SPECIAL NOTE ON HEROIC JUMPING FROM VANS

We spend a lot of time jumping from the vans – a good friend of mine had to sit out the second half of the last season because he heroically jumped onto a glass coke bottle and broke his ankle. Heroic jumping is not something to be trifled with – don’t worry, we’re trained professionals. Here at Thrilling Adventures, we begin with heroically jumping from the couch to get a soda, and work our way up. Be careful out there, kids.

…And grabbed twenty bikes off the racks faster than I ever had before, and ever have since. I was finished by about ten seconds when the bus rounded the corner. I waved cheerfully as it pulled up in front of me. Everyone piled out chattering away, got their bikes, took some pictures, and rode off.

Kaitlyn was riding bike support this day, and left with the bulk of the group. I tidied everything up and drove to support the route. We crossed the border from Hungary into Slovakia and hit the plains of southern Slovakia.

After several hours we were approaching the start of the afternoon hills, where Liam and I execute a very complicated series of logistical maneuvers with two vans to prevent all the guests from hating us. You see, they’ve already ridden like 90Km, and THEN they start a 15Km series of mammoth hill climbs.

The idea is that the luggage transfer guy (Liam) was to drop the luggage in our next town, a preserved, tiny mining town called BANSKA STIAVNICA, then drop the trailer in a separate parking lot and come back to meet me at a small café right before the hill climbs start. There, as the riders arrive, we would be brutally honest about the difficulty of the next section. Liam would load up a van full of those not willing to do the ride and take them straight to the hotel, and I would support those willing to ride the hills.

As I approached the café when Liam was supposed to meet me, I was pretty nervous. I mean, after all, the "snack return snafu" must have cost him 45 minutes to an hour. There was no way he was going to be there when the riders got there, which meant there would be nobody to take the shuttlers straight to the hotel. This meant I’d have to stall the group (“Hey look! They have GREAT beer here! Ha-ha – HAVE ANOTHER! I’M NOT FUCKING KIDDING HAVE ANOTHER BEER! HAHA!”) until Liam showed up – maybe even an hour later.

I called him. He picked the phone up cheerfully.

“Hey Robin! Sup man!” He was yelling over the sound of a van being driven faster than vans should ever go.

“Hey Liam – where are you?”

“Super close to the café, man!” He yelled.

“Really? How is that possible?”

“Ha-ha well I’ve had to some less than safe driving!” He screamed.

“Uh. Really?”

“Yeah! You know the trailer? A couple of times I’d hit a bump in the road, and THAT FUCKER WOULD BE AIRBORNE! AHAHAHA!”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll be there in a second!”

I hung up, and in he pulled, glee all over his face, about a minute before the guests arrived. I shook his hand in admiration.

We racked all the bikes of those not into tackling the big hills as the sun emerged from the clouds, setting the scene for this part of the ride to be about a billion fucking degrees. Liam took off with a van for the hotel. He was then to wait there, greeting guests and putting bikes in storage, while I drove around the remaining part of the bike route, giving people water and encouragement.

I drove past Jerry (remember Jerry? “I think Thrilling Adventures is going to be losing my business soon” Jerry?) on a huge hill, and he gave me the signal that he needed support. I pulled over to the side of the road and got out, opening the back doors of the van to set up a water station. Jerry pulled up and got some water, then rode on.

I got in the van as he rode off, and drove the van back onto the road. After a few minutes, I looked in my rearview mirror and noticed that the back door was wide open.

Shit. I pulled over and ran around, took a quick glance inside (didn’t seem to be missing anything) and closed the doors. As I was walking back to the drivers’ seat, I got a call from Kaitlyn. She riding with an older guest who was determined to finish the big hill, but let’s be honest here was probably hyperventilating from the way his breathing sounded. She mentioned that they needed a little water, (Guide speak for: We’re completely out of water. Get here ASAP) so I turned around and drove back down the hill.

When I finally reached Kaitlyn and the guest, I pulled over to the side of the road and got out. I walked over to where they were waiting – he breathing air in gigantic gulps, her wearing that regal look that ultra athletes wear when doing distances that “normal” people consider hard. I grabbed his water bottles for him, offering to fill them up. He nodded, panting, as Kaitlyn offered vague words of encouragement.

Man was it hot outside.

I walked around to the back of the van, opened it up, and saw a big gaping hole where the water jug should have been.

Holy shit.

My mind whirred, standing behind the van. Of course. The back of the van had been open, facing the side of the road, when I gave water to Jerry. As I drove uphill to get back on the road the water jug must have just dropped right out. I just didn’t notice that it was gone when I did my quick check.

I stole a glance around the side of the van: Kaitlyn chatting away with the guest, him sweating buckets and looking really…well, thirsty.

I looked back into the back of the van at my lack of water. I wondered if my water jug was just sitting, intact, on the side of the road. I calculated how long it would take me to get there and come back down here, and how much credibility that I’d lose with the guest at this point.

I looked back at the guest.

Shit, that guy could be a poster for thirst.

I looked back into the back of the van, and noticed my camelbak (a water-holding backpack) was still there from the day before. Crossing my fingers, I grabbed it – still felt like there was some water in there!

I opened it and poured it out into his water bottle. Just…full! Yes!

I walked back around the van and handed it to him.

“Thanks,” he gasped, and took a big old sip.

"No problem!" I said, hoping that no one else wanted any water. I got in the van and drove back to where I thought the water had probably fallen out.

When I got there, I noticed something grim: The gentle downhill where I had parked eventually turned into a sheer, impossibly high cliff.

That jug was gone forever.

Hmmmm.

I called Liam, and as his van now had the only water jug we had, sent him out on the route. I headed back to the hotel.

And that was that for the Jug Incident. All of our guests, for better or worse, arrived at the Hotel Salamander, had a sit down session with a local historian, then ate dinner at a local restaurant that is so small that we have to fax our dinner orders in a day early.

I took a walk by myself after dinner to stop by a hotel that I’d stayed at during my FAM, then went to bed after brainstorming with Kaitlyn about where we could possibly find another water jug in central Slovakia.

A PAUSE IN THE STORY TO TELL A SMALL SIDE STORY ABOUT BANSKA STIAVNICA THAT I HAD FORGOTTEN UNTIL NOW

This is a cool town. It’s all spires and sharp roofs and narrow buildings squished into each other with impossible amounts of old wooden stairways from story to story within each building and buildings painted in shades of pinks to greens to blues and statues all over the place. It was a small silver mining town for hundreds of years, but as the mining industry dried up, most of the population moved away, and now the city sleeps forever and small amounts of tourists trickle through on their way to bigger draws but I loved it there.

During my FAM, as I mentioned in an earlier blog, I spent almost a whole week slowly losing my mind due to day after day without talking to anyone. When I arrived in Banska Stiavnica, it was around ten at night, I was exhausted, and needed to find a place to stay.

I wandered around, poking my head into hotel after hotel (full, too expensive, just plain weird, etc) when I stuck my head into a tiny, pink one, and was face to face with the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. She didn’t speak any English, and I don’t speak Slovakian. I tried her Italian and she tried my German (no luck) and then I sat down with her in the flickering light of the lobby and drew her pictures until she understood that I wanted a room. They had one, and I stayed the night.

Every time I came downstairs we both blushed a lot and had funny gesture-conversations, and I went out to grab a pizza and a few mugs of crisp Slovakian beer and study Slovakian history and look at my notes - but I couldn't get this girl out of my head.

I came back and plopped down in the lobby – I think that I was the only guest in the hotel that night. She laughed and we drew more pictures, and then eventually the night grew late and I headed to my room and went to sleep.

The next morning she made me breakfast. Still smiling and blushing she bustled around and I ate breakfast, and then while I was paying the bill I suddenly had a violent urge to just stay right there, learn Slovakian, marry this girl that I had never exchanged a single word with, and run a hotel in the town of Banska Stiavnica.

I came out of this reverie as she was handing me my credit card receipt to sign. I made eye contact for a long second over the pen she was holding out, then signed it, told her that I’d be back the next week with a group of “people on bikes,” and left.

She wasn’t there when we came back – just an old man who couldn’t understand me either – and that was that.

Poof.