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Just read a blog from a good friend of mine today concerning the small stuffed cow that he has been travelling the globe with for quite a few years now. If you are interested, you can read about it here: http://www.julianpegler.com/?p=162

Well, the point being that JuLes and his cow, named Biff, are not an oddity in this world. I myself have been known to jump a plane or train with the ever faithful Balthy the stuffed emu in order to satiate his lifelong quest for pins (flags or crests from countries visited). Jonathan, my good friend and homeless Canadian from the earlier Scandinavian adventures, was actually the one who forced me into this existence of plushness when he discovered Balthy in the lost-and-found bin at the High Street Hostel in Edinburgh. Balthy was presented to me, Jonathan told me that I must henceforth carry this modified beanbag wherever I venture and that I must affix the aforementioned pins to its fuzzy flesh. Though Biff and Balthy have actual form and a vague resemblance to some living creature, Jonathan carries around a stuffed sock with white cut-out paper eyes, ragged green bit of wash cloth hair and repeatedly replaced mangled cigar butt (because someone usually ends up smoking the cigar at some point) sticking out from a hole in the sock, all this based upon a Canadian icon of sorts called Ed the Sock – a loud-mouthed, arrogant “host” of a music video program on TV. Jonathan has even kept the same name and has gone as far as fabricating some strange background story of how “his” Ed the Sock is the evil twin of the original and wished to see the world instead of being trapped in the clutches of television stardom all his existence. Give him a break, he’s Canadian!

There are various reasons why we and many others like us cavort with these inanimate travel companions, but I guess the main underlying reason is to have some sort of unique foreground for the photographs we take: A slightly out-of-focus Biff against the expanse of the Red Square in Moscow; Ed the Sock in the gentle grip of a young monk in Thailand; Balthy warming up to an elderly woman selling bird feed in a Sarajevo market. I guess that many of these photos began as a humorous gesture to amuse of family and friends, but then it became an obsession … a sickness, even … especially with Jonathan and I … well, mostly Jonathan. Competitions started arising, points to be scored, goals to achieve. Could one of us get a Russian border guard to have their image snapped with a stuffed doll? Can you sneak a shot of the plush critter sitting astride a sawdust filled seal in the Tromsø Polar Museum? Would the Pope give these cuddly items a squeeze? And even more so, would he let you capture this on film for the faithful masses to become exposed to!? Sometimes these reasons outweighed logic and became our sole motives for going certain places; some of which have been fulfilled, some waiting for another day.

I guess there is also the fact that most us like being in the spotlight a bit, as well. I know that I can be a ham at times. Nothing starts up a conversation or attracts various sideways glances or full-on gawking as meandering up to some well-know or sacred landmark, withdrawing a mangy sock / cow / emu from your rucksack and then trying to find that perfect angle and shot that would encompass the beauty of the location only to flaw it with the presence of a tattered and stuffed something. I am not too sure how well this has been at winning the hearts of beautiful women, but then again, I am married to a beautiful little lady, and JuLes has the lifelong companionship of the lovely Gerri. Jonathan, on the other hand … well, what kind of impression could you hope to make with a grubby sock puppet?

The well-dressed Canadian meanders over to a table occupied by a beautiful dark-haired woman that has been catching his eye all evening: “Hi, my name is Jonathan, very nice to meet you!”
With a shy, come-hither look, the lady replies: “Hello. I’m Bertha. So, how did you end up in this small café in rural Cumbernauld?”
“Actually, I’ve been travelling constantly for over the past 10 years now. I now work as a tour guide for a prestigious firm which pays me to traverse the globe in search of exotic locales.”
More sparkles glint within her eyes: “Wow! That sounds really interesting!”
Jonathan notices the sparks flying and helps himself to the empty seat beside her: “Yeah, it is fun, but I really use it as a vehicle for my true love … photography. As a matter of fact, I was wondering if you could help me with a photo right now.” Jonathan reaches into his day pack resting on his lap and pulls out Ed: “Here, could you hold this a moment?”
Those once magical, sparkling eyes dull into the colour of charcoal that has been urinated upon to extinguish any remaining hint of flame: “Excuse me,” she says in a flat tone typically utilised by postal clerks, “I have to get back to the doctor now and have a bad case of haemorrhoids examined.”

Now, the story if he had been travelling with a cute, cuddly plush creature the likes of Biff or Balthy:

Jonathan notices the sparks flying and helps himself to the empty seat beside her: “Yeah, it is fun, but I really use it as a vehicle for my true love … photography. As a matter of fact, I was wondering if you could help me with a photo right now.” Jonathan reaches into his day pack resting on his lap and pulls out an adorable, stuffed, fluffy kitten: “Here, could you hold this a moment?”
Her eyes flare up with brightness unseen except by those who have had near-death experiences and claim to have ‘seen the light’. She stands up, grasping the collar of her button-down blouse and ripping the front open in one blindingly quick movement that sends mother-of-pear flying across the room to expose lingerie and cleavage that would have most mortal men shaking in their Wellington boots and drooling like a little child after an injection of Novocain. “Take me now!” she screams with passion. “Show me the love that only a heart as pure as yours can deliver unto my unworthy soul! Let me become fertile with your seed and bear forth the fruit of your sacred loins! I am at your whim … command me and deliver me into the paradise that is your embrace!”

I’m sure JuLes could back me up on this and that he had a similar experience when telling his future wife-to-be about Biff … right?

Whatever the reasoning the three of us have for doing what we do, we are not alone. There are others out there, and I think the world would be more boring and a much less happier place without us. At least we give others something to point and laugh at.

I am old enough to remember when email became a big thing and people began to lament the days of letter writing and the use of a pen or pencil. There was something much more personal about a handwritten letter … the time put into writing, the individual styles of crossing a ‘t’ or dotting an ‘i’, the crossed out mistakes and the misspelled words. Email came along, and paper seemed such a waste; everyone wrote in Times New Roman; spell check solved many issues; and postage stamps became less of a necessity. The only real thing that made email particular to an individual was bad grammar.

“Ah, yes … this one was definitely sent from Bob. He never could use his participles or prepositions correctly!”

But the times, they are a changin’ again, and email seems to be gasping for air these days. Outside of spam mail (which, unfortunately, seems to just keep thriving), the majority of email I receive now is either work related or from one of the multiple social network sites that send me email to tell me I have a new message or comment or something in my account on their site. And it is this that has grasped the neck of the personal email and is steadily applying increasing pressure day by day, slowly cutting off the supply of oxygen and making poor email blue in the face.

In general, I am quite opposed to social networking sites. Mostly because they are usually just so damned silly and cheesy. MySpace has probably one of the worst layouts anyone can imagine. It looks like a child’s cut and paste collage project gone wrong. Put a background here, glue a profile picture there and presto! Instant website! I also really hate the fact that many people put some damn song on their page that starts up without my asking it to. When I’m surfing the web, I usually like to have some music going on in the background (listening to a bit of Skinny Puppy as I write this), but then, as soon as I land on a friend’s MySpace page to find out what’s new in their life (because they no longer email me to say “Hi, how’s things? Not too bad here. I just wrote to say I contracted syphilis this week”), I get the horrendous sounds of some long forgotten, inside joke song cutting through my speakers over the top of the music I had chosen for myself and was enjoying. Nothing is more annoying than having “Ice Ice Baby” or “Achy Breaky Heart” spoil a good Gothic industrial tune! I didn’t want to hear this, and now it’s stuck in my head all day! Damn you! There are options to let the person visiting the page turn the song on if they want to hear it, please don’t force me to listen to this! MySpace also has a section for “bulletin” announcements. Basically, it’s a way to spam all your friends and contacts at one time, though most of my friends seem to use it to send surveys out to everyone. “What are your first memories?”; “Top 45 foods”; “How incontinent are you?”; “If you were a vegetable, which one would you be?”. Now, I will admit that some of these can be a bit informative, and you can learn something about an old schoolmate that you never knew before … maybe they once had a crush on you … maybe they were cheating on you during the time they were supposedly dating you in high school … maybe they secretly sacrificed llamas to the sun god and drank the blood of squirrels before they found Christianity (now they only sacrifice heathens and drink the blood of Jesus); but most of the time you only discover what kind of food the person had for lunch or which person they hugged last. Not really the type of thing that would come up in a normal conversation under any circumstance. It is also the frequency of these surveys that astound me. If I answered ever survey that was sent out, I wouldn’t have the time of day to even make it to the toilet!

Facebook is another one I am unfortunately a member of. Now, where the layout seems much more thought out and professional looking, there have come to be all these strange “applications” that you can add to your page. There are a few that may be useful or informative, such as maps showing where you have travelled (for those of us that like to brag) or your recommendations to others for books or music. But Facebook has gone silly with things like “Food Fight” (where you ‘throw’ virtual food products at each other), “Aquarium” (um, the fish don’t even move), “Booze Mail” (ok, I want a real drink, not a cartoon drawing of one) and the number one bizarre application: “Skid Marks” (you can have a pair of shit-stained, white y-fronts dishing out Confucius-like knowledge on your profile page). There is also something that is called “Poke” or even “Super Poke” that sends messages to your chosen contact like “Neil has poked you” or “You have been chest bumped by Theodore”. Well, I’m sorry … I don’t want Neil, or anyone else for that matter, to poke me. That’s annoying! And I have never ever chest bumped anyone in my life. Always seemed a bit too much of a frat boy to me, so why would I rub my pecs up against someone else? Facebook has taken a huge slide into the reeking sewers of the world in my mind.

There are also plenty of others out there that I am sure are quite the same: Friendster, Bebo, Multiply … and the list goes on. I cannot deny that there is some good in social networking sites, though. I have regained contact with many long lost friends from high school and from my travels, and I have been able to promote the music I play (whether my own or with the band Gasoline), and many of these sites make it easier for me to store photos that may be of relevance to friends (those snaps from the time you worked together in Abu-Dhabi as toilet cleaners) or family (cute photos of your sprog eating cat food and spitting up all over the jumper that your gran sent over as a birthday present) at no charge.

But an unfortunate side is that in most cases, this is now the only way I can keep in contact with my many of my friends as most of them only chat through these sites, and everyone has their own particular network they use, so you end up having to sign up for all of them. I have an account with 3 or 4 right now, and most of them have the same repeated pictures or information on them. Every day, it takes about 30 minutes to an hour to check them all, reply to any messages or comments that need an urgent reply or to nose about that old friend’s site that you have recently reconnected with.

I guess it is still quicker than writing and posting a letter … or sending an email.

Norway, Finland & Sweden – Part III – Rudolf or Bust

One thing became apparent as we crossed over into the land of the Finns … things were cheaper! Not necessarily cheap, mind you, but cheaper. We knew our stay in Finland was limited to maybe one day of driving through to Sweden, but we took advantage of this money saving opportunity and filled up on petrol … twice … just because we could. This decrease in price of go-go juice for our car also gave us the ability to buy not one, but two petrol station hot dogs with cola and potato salad. We were kings and living the good life now!

The northern regions of Finland kept us fascinated with their rugged beauty, just as Norway had done, but the horizon gradually began to flatten out, reindeer appeared from time to time along the roads, and lakes started to speckle the landscape. In an area covered by hundreds of lakes, one interesting mode of public transportation popped up that was new to our way of thinking – the small, single engine air plane taxi. There were signs here and there that almost seemed to be like taxi stands except with silhouettes of those types of aircraft with pontoons instead of wheels for landing on water (I’m sure there is a more technical name for them besides “air-planey pontoony floaty things”, but the name seems to escape me at present). But then we began wondering … how do you hail one of these? Do you have to call up a dispatch office or do you just flag one down from the sky with a brightly coloured banner? And what kind of price would you be expected to pay? Do the locals use them to get home after a night out drinking in the pubs? And do the pilots let you eat your kebab in the plane or is there a strictly no food policy? So many questions!

“Hello. Radio Air Taxi Service. How may I help you?”
“Hi, I need a taxi for two for a pick up at 37 Deer Dung Crossing. That’s on the corner of Moose Mess Lake and Turtle Head Grove.”
“One moment please … ” A click as you are put on hold, then the sounds of a Muzak version of Rock D.J. After a moment, the line clicks back over. “Green Cessna. 10 minutes.”
“Thanks.”

Unfortunately, our luck did not grace us with the answer to this quandary, and our grasp of the Finnish language (or lack of it) did not permit us to inquire with anyone that we might have had the chance to encounter.

Jonathan and I have always done our best to pick up a few words of the language for each country we visit. It is only fair. We are visitors, and we should respect the culture of the land we set foot on. But the Finnish language stumped us. That and Hungarian are the only languages so far that not a single word seems to stick in the brain. I don’t know what it is, just some sort of mental block, really. We tried our hardest, but to no avail. We reverted to body language and pointing … would have even tried drawing pictures if we had had any crayons.

Working in hostels around Europe, I have heard so many punters become irate when they find out that the local population isn’t fluent in English. We Americans are the worst for the most part. So many American college kids decide that it is the prime moment in their life to become exposed to other cultures before having to settle into the 9 to 5 grind, so they grab Daddy’s credit card, hop a flight to Europe, grab a rail pass and then bitch about how nothing is like it is in America.

“Hey, Todd … dude, remember that old guy we met in that small Romanian village in the mountains in the middle of nowhere? Remember how when I, like, asked him if he could point us in the direction of an ATM, he just look at us, like, ‘duh’? What an idiot! I mean, I was shouting at the dumbass at the top of my lungs and he just wasn’t getting it! Europe is supposed to be all cultural and shit, but this guy couldn’t even grasp fucking English, man! He probably was some illiterate inbred, you know, like that banjo playing Deliverance Georgia boy and the moose-humping Canadian lumberjack we met working at that hostel in Scotland.”

Anyway, we eventually made it to one of the big points of interest on our excursion that we had been planning to visit from the very beginning. Nordkapp was on that list; Lofoten way up there; crossing the Arctic Circle, too … but this was the mother of them all … the jewel in our sights … the place that you knew you could die happy after having been there. Yes, my dear readers, I am talking about the Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi!

You know, all this time I had been told that Santa lived at the North Pole. I mean, that’s where I posted letters to as a kid! Well, I hope he has better postal service that we do here in Poland and that those letters were eventually forwarded to the new Finland address. I guess they weren’t as I never got all the Star Wars toys I begged for in my letters as a child. When and why did he move, anyway? Shouldn’t there have been a statement or something? Why didn’t we Americans know about this!!!

Press Release from Kris Kringle – “Due to global warming and the alarming amount of elves being eaten by starving polar bears which cannot cross ice flows in order to obtain their normal fare of seals and the such, Mr Kringle has decided to relocate to Rovaniemi, Finland. Why Finland, you may ask? After careful consideration of the surrounding countries within the Arctic Circle, Finland seemed the most logical. Russian Siberia did not have the infrastructure, and the Russian authorities considered Mr Kringle as a business oligarch; Norway was just too overpriced and, as everyone knows, is populated with trolls; Greenland turned out not to be so green; and Canada’s prime minister is quite busy at the moment reasserting their sovereignty in the area, so Mr Krigle thought it prudent to stay out of the way for the time being.”

Many American malls have an all-year Christmas ornament shop located upon their premises. I understand that many individuals wish it was Christmas every day of the year, but they apparently don’t shop at these stores as I have never seen a sole grace the interior of any of these places outside of the month of December. Maybe they are subsidised by Saint Nick and that is how the stay afloat. Santa Claus Village is pretty much a massively enlarged version of one of these with shops sprinkled everywhere selling kitsch holiday goods (snow shakers, decorative tree lights, Santa boxer shorts). And then there is Santa’s Office itself. In all honesty, I cannot tell you about this. You will have to head to the official Santa Claus Village website to see the awe inspiring photos and read more titbits like (and I quote):

“Santa’s friends often wonder how on earth they are going to convince their friends and relatives that they really have met Santa in person. The camera elves have a good solution to this problem – in a flash they provide you with a quality photo as a souvenir and proof of your visit.”

Why, you may ask? Well, as many hardships as we had endured, roads we had traversed, rabid reindeer we had narrowly escaped from, we failed to leap the final hurdle that would have enabled us to pour forth the pain in our souls upon the lap of Mr Claus … we arrived five minutes past closing time of his office. A resounding, guttural, heart-wrenching cry from the throats of two youthful human males could be heard echoing throughout Lapland that day; a cry that, if you listened closely enough, sounded vaguely like the words “son of a bitch!”

After a good cry to cleanse our spirits, Jonathan and I gathered up Balthy and Ed the Sock, took a few cheesy photos in front of the barred doors that led into Santa’s haven of bliss and packed ourselves back into the Rent-A-Wreck. We may have been shunned by the jolly ol’ fat man, but there was still some daylight left, and if we pushed hard enough, we could make it into Sweden before nightfall. Finland held no comfort for us any more. We were done. It was time to move on.

If anyone has read BBC News lately, then you might have heard about the bus full of Polish tourists making a pilgrimage in France that careened off the road, plunged into a ravine and burst into flames killing 26 passengers this past Sunday. My heart goes out to the families of those that lost their lives and my best wishes go to those that were injured and had to be treated in hospital. Any loss of life is tragic, but, unfortunately, that is the way of the world. I would like to comment, though, on the reaction of Poland to this event. Currently, Poland is yet again in a state of mourning. I say “yet again” because this seems to have become a trend over the last five years in this country. For over 50 years and all the plight and troubles that Poland has had to endure throughout history, there have never been as many “days of mourning” as there have been in recent years. This is not to say that one should not grieve for the death of another, but to shut down certain parts of daily life for every death is becoming a bit of overkill (pardon the wording). When Pope John Paul II passed away, I could fully understand a national period of mourning. He was one of the most important figures in Polish history and changed the lives of every Pole, either through religion or through his help in the downfall of communism in Poland. He deserved to be mourned, whether you are a religious person or not or believe in everything he worked for or not, just for everything he accomplished. He was, simply put, a well respected and good man. When a gas explosion in a mine trapped and killed over 20 people in 2006, this was significant cause for a time of mourning due to the fact that the state of Polish mines are atrocious and more than 80 miners have lost their lives since 2003. The miners were also a strong faction of the Solidarity movement. The death of a group of miners is as much symbolic as it is tragic. When the roof of a building collapsed under snow killing or injuring 140 Poles, Germans and Belgians at a pigeon convention, this was significant in that … um … well … what the hell, let’s have a time of national mourning anyway. And this is becoming the trend. People die every day. Large amounts of them at a time, even! But where is the line for it being a time to mourn or not. As a matter of fact, 11 students died in a bus accident on their way to a shrine in Poland back in 2005. Was there a day of mourning? Nope. Hmm … maybe the number of deaths has to be higher. But wait … in January 2006, 63 people in Poland froze to death in one week in sub-zero temperatures. That surely beats the 26 that died in the crash in France! Days of mourning … none.

Let us move on to what these days of national mourning entail. Usually, here in Poland, the idea is that celebrations and anything that might cause people to enjoy themselves too much and put them in a festive mood are put on hold. When John Paul II died, concerts and social events were cancelled or postponed and many pubs were closed all over the country. TV channels like MTV and other channels of a purely entertainment nature even stopped broadcasting for a few days. The major Internet portals changed their entire sites to black & white. When the miners died, many social events were put on hold out of respect for the dead. I don’t recall pubs or many channels shutting down, though. At least not nearly to the same degree as with the Pope’s death. Following the events in France this past Sunday, a state of national mourning has been issued, but it all seems a bit half-arsed. A few Internet portals have changed their headers and logo colours to black & white (just the headers and logos this time, not the entire site), and one or two channels have stopped broadcasting. Not really a massive showing of the nation’s sadness. What’s the point? If you are not even going to put real heartfelt emotions into showing your respect for the dead, then just keep moving along as 98% of the rest of the country has done. Remember all those things I mentioned that ceased after the death of the Pope and the miners? Well, as of today and due to the tragedy in France: pubs closed = none that I know of; TV stations not broadcasting = one (a satellite only educational channel); concerts cancelled = one … Rod Stewart … but, really, does that count? The Rolling Stones are still on schedule for tomorrow night, though they have been pressured into observing a minute of silence (instead of the original idea of pushing the concert start time to midnight when the time of mourning officially ends) and, get this, having to pay the families of those who died or where injured in the crash a sum of money. Did the Rolling Stones cause the accident in France? Was Keith Richards somehow mystically involved and brought this about by snorting his father’s remains? Did their “devil music” indirectly make the brakes fail on the tour bus (that rumour has may not have even been up to European standards for transporting passengers)? If the answer is “no”, then why are they being made to pay a chunk of their earnings to the families? Maybe I should go around town tonight, find any concert that is going on in Kraków and collect a percentage from any band that I find playing on behalf of the bereaved relatives. I mean, if we are going to mourn, let’s mourn across the board and not make it conditional as to the number of dead or their public profile. Light a candle, stop broadcasting, close the pubs, stop the celebrations … and stop hitting up a rich and famous foreign rock band for cash just because you can.

Norway, Finland & Sweden – Part II – Nordkapp to Karasjok

Night drew to a close the end of another long gruelling day of traversing the roads of Scandinavia, and the four of us humans, along with Balthazar and Ed the Sock, found ourselves in the Sami town of Karasjok near the border crossing Finland. Originally, we had planned to make our way further east towards the border with Russia, because Jonathan and I had created a scale of points when it comes to photo taking, and high on our list of prized shots was to get a picture of either Ed or Balthy with a Russian border guard. Time was against us, though, and we had to make our way south instead. So far, neither of us have accrued the points for this photo, but life is still not over for us yet! Instead, we found another one of those cozy cabins for the night, which are wonderfully plentiful in Norway, to rest our heads, and after a quick nip of whisky from Tomek’s hip flask (strange to have a Pole carting around a flask full of whisky and not vodka), Jonathan and I decided to leave the married couple on their own so that they might enjoy some quality time together and hit the town, see if we could find a watering hole and indulge in an overly-priced beer or two before retiring for the night. We rationalised the cost of alcohol at a pub with the thought that, “Hey, we are heading out of Norway and into Finland tomorrow; we should celebrate!”. Yes, any reason to drink is a good one. We did find a fire blazing in a hearth and some liquid refreshment at a roadside establishment that, in all honesty, reminded me a bit of an old dive I used to frequent during my high school days.

There was a place called PJ’s Last Chance under the bridge that led across the Mississippi River from Vicksburg, MS into Louisiana that was a favourite haunt for all us teens to go and get drunk due to the fact that you only had to be 18 to drink in Louisiana while Mississippi was 21. It was on an old dirt road and had the look of one of those dingy shacks that people in the middle of nowhere drink at because there is nothing else around. Think redneck biker bar, but full of metal-heads and jocks (it was one of the only places where the two cultures mingled due to the lower drinking age). Later, in my last year of high school, there was also a place called Daiquiri World near by that sold cocktails via a drive-through window. Now there is the essence of intelligence there, don’t you think? “Hey, kids … don’t drink and drive! But come on by in your car to pick up a nice frosty Long Island Ice Tea in a Styrofoam cup to keep your thirst at bay as you drive back home across a bridge into another state where you are not even of legal age!” Well, both places were quite popular to say the least, and many memories were had, and lost, there.

Anyway, after shelling out a small fortune for a beer each, Jonathan and I quickly made ‘friends’ with some locals at the bar. I guess they could sniff out foreigners like us as soon as we walked into the room. Two gentlemen, clearly intoxicated, came by and had a seat at the booth with us, and the older of the two began rattling on in some unknown tongue. We were delighted to find that the younger gent spoke a smattering of English and proceeded to tell us that the older man was speaking in Sami and that he didn’t really understand him that well either. The elderly Sami man was constantly smiling, though, and we perceived this to be his jovial, kind nature … until … well, the younger of the two then decided to tell us that the we should be wary of the old man, because he was a bit of a dirty bugger and enjoyed the company of young boys just as much as the ladies … come to think of it, the younger one continued, he was even partial to some animals as well. With smiles on their faces, they continued this conversation well past the point of “ha ha … that’s quaint” to the level of “hey, Jonathan … I think we need to be going now before we wind up tied to a post in the middle of a small reindeer herd and have sweet nothings whispered in our ears by an old man wise in the ways of skinning Rudolph’s relatives. Yes, I do enjoy listening to this unique Sami dialect, and I’m sure there is so much history and culture we could learn here, but at the same time, I’m frightened to death and wish to cower under a bed with the lights out!” We politely made our excuses and left the establishment as quickly as we could.

The next morning saw the end of our journey with Tomek and Barbara, as they decided to stay in the area for a while longer and take in the northern regions more fully. To this day, I really wonder if it had more to do with us and the Robbie Williams CD.

“Kochana, I really think we should ditch these two freaks of nature,” I imagine Tomek saying to his wife whilst Jonathan and I were out conversing with the perverts at the bar. “I cannot believe we were so desperate as to have hitched a ride with these two … and to have continued with them this far as well!”

Barbara peers into her husband’s eyes, sees a true look of fear and despair there and replies, “Should we sneak out tonight while they are gone, or do we just hide in our room until dawn? I am too tired to run at this moment, and it is quite late. There are wolves in this region, so it may not be safe at night.”

“Wolves be damned!” Tomek shouts with his fist in the air. “I would take my chances and prefer the saliva drenched fangs of the beasts as they rip into my flesh, tearing the life essence from my body in strands of gore than to have to listen to their horrid puns and that cursed Rock DJ again!”

A tear comes to Barbara’s eye, but she is strong. She places a loving hand on Tomek’s cheek and whispers into his ear. “I would fight by your side even against the multitudes of Hell, but we must bear one more night. Tomorrow we shall slip away with grace and dignity and live to tell our children and our children’s children of the horrors they must face in this cruel world. We shall be a pillar of strength unto them, and they will revere us all the more and sings songs of the hardships we had to endure.”

Love for his wife and her words conquers the fear inside him, and Tomek kisses his wife full on the lips. “You are right, mój skarbie. I shall be resolute and brave. Forgive me my moment of weakness. But if those two return from the pub singing, I’ll lump them over the heads with a stick!”

We said our goodbyes and passed along our well-wishes to each other, promising that we would meet again after I had settled in Poland. Jonathan and I then set off for the Finnish border in our trusty Rent-a-Wreck. An amazing site was to be beheld as we drove the car through the centre of this sleepy Sami town that day – a lone, black haired wolf was traipsing through the early morning mist down the empty main street. It seems Tomek and Barbara had made the correct choice after all!

Reprinted from a previous story I wrote for my friend Jonathan’s website www.owilybug.ca

Norway, Finland & Sweden – Part I – Oslo to Nordkapp

“Well, the only way to see what we want is to rent a car.”
Two weeks, over 4000 km from Oslo to Nordkapp and back and a car plastered with its rental company’s namesake (Rent-a-Wreck) – this was what the future would hold for us after our arrival in Bergen and two-day trip to Oslo. What sites would we behold? Where would we rest our weary heads at night? How could we have enough money left in our budget to afford the astronomically priced alcohol? That was all left to the navigation and planning skills of Jonathan as I took on the driving duties for the entire trip (and as it has turned out in my life, most road trips I have ever made usually leave me behind the wheel as no one else could either drive a manual transmission car or they didn’t have a driver’s license at all). Now, as far as road conditions go, Scandinavia is a pleasure, and you don’t have your teeth rattled out (Poland) or have pieces and parts of the automobile darting off in directions opposite your intended route (Romania), but the exceedingly strict speed limit in a country that is as long as it is can make getting anywhere in a hurry impossible. We stayed within the limits for fear of being nabbed by any one of the many hidden speed cameras, but I can tell you that after too many days, and occasionally nights, within the confines of a car trying to reach your destination, you begin to lose all reasoning (not that Jonathan or I had much to begin with), and imitating animal sounds starts to take on an entirely new level of humour unknown to the average short-distance combustion engine traveller. I wonder if lorry drivers can be heard making cow noises to themselves in the enclosed cab of their trucks?

North of the Arctic Circle is a truly stunning part of the world, and Norway doesn’t disappoint when it comes to scenery. We were also lucky enough to come in mid-August at the close of the tourist season, so we had the roads, hostels and camps to ourselves, quite literally as two or three of the places we stayed at had us as their sole guests. I do wonder if the nice people that ran these establishments were actually cursing us behind our backs.

“Dammit, Sven! I was ready to pack it all up and head back to the city, but then those two North Americans show up and make us stay open another night! They didn’t even ask for the expensive rooms!”
“Calm yourself, Olaf. We could always say they were gored to death by rabid reindeer. I mean, who would miss two punters that embark on a journey and take stuffed animals and sock puppets with them? Also, what kind of sick perverts are these that take photos of themselves shagging animal statues? We would be doing the world a favour!”
“True, but it would be a bitch to clean the blood stains out of the Volvo later.”
“Oh well. They’re only here for the night. Put out the CLOSED FOR THE SEASON sign before more come.”

After a few days, we made it up to the ferry port town of Skutvik (I just love that name!), left our set of wheels and headed over to the Lofoten Islands. I have been on the Pentland Firth heading to Orkney (some very choppy water at times), but nothing made me want to hurl my partially digested lunch of convenient store hot dogs and potato salad as much as the passage from Skutvik to Svolvær! I am also still surprised to this day how all the vehicles in the hold did not get tossed around like Hot Wheels in the carrying case of a child who’s had too much Jolt Cola and is trying to run away from a bully trying to forcefully take away his brand-new Pontiac Trans-Am made to look like the car from Smokey and the Bandit.

That aside, let me actually get back to the issue of lunch. I know … most of you may say that the food itself was enough to make a grown person standing on dry land turn his guts inside-out, but when in Norway, dealing with our budget and in a car most of the day, road side snacks that are grouped together in special meal deals (Coke included in the price, which, by means of caffeine, keeps your eyes open whilst driving) are the way to go, especially during the second week when you can stomach no more sliced pepperoni sausage and blocks of cheese on bread.

What can I say about Lofoten that will give anyone reading this an idea of the place? Unfortunately, there are no words. They have not created adjectives in any language that can encompass my feelings for the remarkable beauty of this place (the word ‘beauty’ is so trivial a word here, and I wish I had the energy to look in a thesaurus and find something better, but I’m sure I’d be disappointed with any synonym I could find, so I’ll just leave it for now). As I have been back there recently, I recommend anyone to go there at least once in your life … especially to the hostel in Stamsund run by Roar Justad. You just have to experience the place for yourself as well as the humour and hospitality of Roar, the owner, with his traditional Norwegian jumper that seems to have a personality of its own. The place also attracts a specific breed of traveller, too. Some never leave, or at least not for too long! I happened to run into a young lady on my second visit that was there when Jonathan and I were there the first time five years earlier. I, too, want to go back as soon as possible and maybe settle there for the rest of my days! That’s how spectacular it is (another lame adjective that just doesn’t cut the mustard)!

There were people at this hostel that have left a lasting impression as well, though “lasting impression” for me does not mean that I can recall a single name. I am horrible with names. Always have been. A face… no problem! But a name … tattoo it on your forehead, and I’d still forget. Really! I had a friend that I constantly called Ryan for about a year although his name was Nathan. I maybe got it right two or three times. He doesn’t talk to me much anymore.

Anyway, some of the impressions of the people I am left with are:

An Israeli couple – very sweet people, but during a night of telling jokes around the table, the guy was laughing so hard at the lead-up to the punchline of his own joke, that to this day, I am still quite sure he never finished telling the joke. I really wish I knew the punchline, dammit!

A lone traveller from Switzerland – quiet type with a bad case of eczema, but one I have dubbed “Goat-Boy” due to his ability to climb up a mountain like it was a stroll in the park. Jonathan and I were panting a bit and occasionally taking a breather, but this guy (who started about an hour behind us) bounded up the slopes like … well … a mountain goat and caught up with us in no time! (on a side note – this guy also travelled via his own car, which he brought over to the islands. One morning, we all decided that we’d do a bit of sightseeing and would go by car. Jonathan was taking an exceedingly long time getting ready (I’m still not sure of the reason), so I decided to walk around and shoot a few photos, but all within sight of the hostel. Well, as I was returning, Jonathan and this other bloke go speeding by me in the car and off on some grand adventure! They claim that they couldn’t find me … yeah, right! “Well,” thought I, “if that’s the way it is, then I’ll just hitchhike around by myself and enjoy the sunny weather without them! Maybe I’ll even say that I couldn’t find Jonathan as I make my way back to the mainland in a few days and continue north without him in the car, you bastards!!” My anger increased when, whilst waiting on the side of the road hitching, they passed me by again … and didn’t even stop to pick me up! (They claim they didn’t see me … yeah, right!) I was left a bit puzzled, though, as when they passed me, they were going back in the direction of the hostel. I was to find out later that the tunnel a few kilometres ahead linking to the next island was toll, and they couldn’t be
bothered paying the fee. I, though, caught a lift with a nice elderly man (hmmm … that sounds creepy) and got through without even reaching for my wallet. Needless to say, I felt justified. I wouldn’t have stayed angry long anyway as my day was wonderful and the hitching got me down to the last fishing village of “Å” just in time to catch the bus straight back to the hostel. Jonathan never made it there, and I am now making that horrendous “ha ha ha ha ha” laugh that annoying kids make when they get an ice cream and their friend doesn’t.

Oh, yeah … back to the people:

Tomek and Barbara – a married couple from Poland that we had the good chance to meet and who ended up travelling along with us in the Rent-A-Wreck all the way north and then to Finland. After I moved down to Kraków, Poland, I went to visit my new friends. Tomek was unfortunately held away much longer on business, but Barbara took me around her home of Wrocław and played the hostess exceedingly well. I did find it a bit funny when she introduced me to ‘smalec’ – basically lard with a few chunks of gristle that you spread over a slice of bread. Why I say funny is that Barbara kept telling me she was a strict vegetarian and all the while shoving this pig fat down her throat and her eyes turned to heaven with a look of pure, near orgasmic ecstasy in them. She said it was her only weakness, and after trying it myself, my eyes bulged with pleasure as well. I hope no one took photos of the two of us, as her husband may get the wrong impression!

Cute German girl working at the hostel for the month – what can I say? She was a cute German girl working at the hostel for a month, and I was a single traveller … alas, it was never meant to be.

These are the ones from the hostel that stay in mind, but there are plenty of others we met during our trek that have left lasting impressions like the guy Jonathan and I caught a lift from who was so genuinely disappointed that his daughter couldn’t ski that I honestly believe he was in some way ashamed of her; or the drunk down in Oslo that almost punched Jonathan and I for taking a picture that he just happened to be in the background of; or a woman that was in our drinking crowd at our one night out in Oslo that got really offended when we bought a round of beer for everyone (as we were used to doing in Scotland and which I still think is a wonderful custom) – “Hey! What are you doing? Why did you by me a drink? Don’t fuckin’ expect me to buy you one later! I’m not going to reimburse you, and I am going to drink it, but I’m not getting you one! Now, don’t ever do that again, you fuckin’ foreigners!”

Well, as sad as it was to leave Lofoten, we had to make our way north to Nordkapp – one of the “must see” points on our itinerary. Along with our new travel companions, Tomek and Barbara, we got back to the mainland and to our trusty, though rusty, rental car.

Now, as most people know, you cannot do a road trip without having some form of audio entertainment to relieve the stress of the endless kilometres and to take away from the thoughts that run through your mind whilst driving (Can I really risk going faster than the speed limit? Do people living above the Arctic Circle go crazy during the dead of winter? Who was the first person to look at an oyster and say, “Yummy!”?). Just as we were leaving Scotland for Norway, the song Rock DJ by Robbie Williams was just peaking in the charts. Being a sucker for a catchy new tune, we couldn’t resist any longer and picked up the former Take That star’s new CD at a petrol station during one of our hot dog, potato salad and Coke stops. Immediately after purchase, the song became our morning wake up tune every day. Get in the car, crank up Mr. Robbie on the crappy speakers in the car that only occasionally worked and head off on our new day of adventure.

I guess I should also explain that by nature, Jonathan and I are in no way fans of the boy band genre. Jonathan is more of an industrial and goth-rock type of guy, whereas I usually went for the alternative rock and indie stuff, though our tastes are much broader than that by far. We just found the song amusing and enjoy the fact that Robbie can take the piss out of himself and his past. It is also a lively number to drive to!

As I have stated, this song became our daily starter, much to the annoyance of Tomek, who one
morning as we were setting off shouted from the back seat: “Guys! Please! Please stop playing that damned song! Every time I think of Norway, I don’t want to think of Robbie Williams and Rock DJ, too!” For the next year, I threatened to send him a CD with only that song on it playing over and over, but I decided against it as the thought of having to pay for his psychiatric treatment may severely cut into my future earnings.

So, with the stereo a’ blarin’, we made our way up to Tromsø (which has, I kid you not, an entire museum devoted to seal clubbing!) and then to Nordkapp. I have mentioned before about toll tunnels and their price that turns away even the mightiest of tourists, but nothing prepared us for the tunnel through to Nordkapp. Even with four of us sharing the fee, it was a very close call between actually paying the hefty price (with the realisation that we’d have to pay it again on our way back as there is only one road in and out of the area) and just saying, “Yeah, I know we just drove over 2000 km to get here, but this is a bunch of monkey piss!” A slew of foul language followed from all of us and we gave the toll collector many evil looks (he seemed not to care though), but we payed and tried to cheer ourselves up with thoughts of all the mystical revelations we would have upon reaching the most northerly point of mainland Europe. Though the weather was a bit overcast, our minds were still full of the inner peace we would receive after viewing the last bit of sea before reaching the North Pole. There were visions of a calming spirit that would settle over us all and give us insight into how to better the world and love all the wonderful creatures and people that inhabit the Earth. WE would be some of the chosen few to come here to ease the turmoil raging within our souls! WE would stop war and create a greener tomorrow!

WE were so thoroughly disappointed!

I had it in my mind that even though the weather was a tad foul, there would be some magical clearing of the skies as we reached our destination. Maybe the sun would even poke it’s head through the clouds long enough to give us that postcard picture moment we saw at so many shops and in so many coffee-table books along the way. This was the land of the midnight sun! This was the spiritual Mecca where the faithful pagans gather for the summer solstice! I wanted this experience! I NEEDED it!

As we got out of the car, the wind nearly took the doors off. Bad sign number one. By the time we reached the door of the information centre ten metres away (where we had to pay an entrance fee!), my raincoat already had me contemplating suing the manufacturer for false advertisement, and my face felt as though it had been ten centimetres behind the tail of one of those utility vehicles they use to spread salt and grit out onto icy roads after a snowstorm. My hopes and dreams of getting that memorable photo from the edge of the world that makes all your friends and family jealous that you have been here and they haven’t were bashed out of existence just like one of those fluffy, white seal pups we saw in the museum earlier in Tromsø. When we actually braved going back outside to see the “view” from the cliff top, I think we stayed out just long enough to grab three or four snaps with the camera of the lot of us huddling next to the monument placed at the cliff edge. There’s no photo of the four of us together as we were the only ones there, and one of us had to hold the camera lest it blew away and flew off to Iceland or Moscow depending on the direction of the wind that day. I guess what made it worse was the fact that the haze cleared just enough intermittently for us to get an idea of what this place could look like on a bright, sunny day.

Mocked by the gods of old and chilled to the bone, we struggled back to the car, turned on Rock DJ to cheer us up (well, Jonathan and I anyway) and made our way back down the road to Loki, the Norse god of mischief, who just happens to be working in the tollbooth of a tunnel in the north of Scandinavia.

Verification yesterday that the times, they are ‘a changin’ …. and not necessarily for the better. When I arrived in Kraków seven years ago, it was still a relatively quiet place in terms of tourism. Parts of town were still in a state of neglect, the main market square still had uneven pavement, and you could sit at an outdoor café, have a reasonably priced meal with a beer and recognise the familiar faces of locals as they walked past. Those days are long gone, I must say. I am all for renovation and improvement to the general décor of the city … it deserves to be beautiful again in every aspect and should show off it’s elegance and architectural achievements … but what you must pay to live here is becoming a hefty price indeed. Yes, the influx of tourism brings in the funding to improve the city, but it takes away the charm of being a home and a place to reside in by making the area become a theme park instead of a functional, residential city. The cafés are now overpriced for those who live here, and the restaurants have definitely moved on from the idea of cost equals quantity and quality. Case in point: I took my wife out to a restaurant (a converted barge that moors here during the summer season) on the Wisła River yesterday, and for the amount we forked out for two main dishes and two glasses of wine, we could have placed a down payment upon a small country. The problem was the quantity of food. Mine was a miserable sliver of chicken with one bacon rasher placed on top accompanied by a teaspoon sized portion of cucumber salad and two tiny new potatoes that would have had an Irishman recall the days of famine. The taste was not so bad, but nothing to write home about. nothing that had your taste-buds dancing a jig and screaming for more. All of this evenly dispersed around an overly large white plate that gave it the appearance of an artistic design rather than an edible dish. The waitress, who looked bored to the point of suicide, even tried to convince us that the house wine, costly enough as it was, was nothing too special, and that she recommend we try one of the others that, of course, were about 50% more expensive. I have worked the bar and restaurant scene before, so I do understand the idea of ‘selling up’, but you never really do this by utilising the phrase “Are you sure?” whist at the same time putting a look of complete disgust on your face after a customer makes his choice. Either the wine is really that bad (which it wasn’t, though I am no expert), or they went to the school of ‘How-Not-To-Sell-A-Meal’ (which is in Scotland, by the way). A shame, too, since the location was rather nice (as I said before, right on the river), though we were relegated to the lower deck of the barge as the upper deck with the prime view was taken up by what seemed to be some sort of office gathering for a company. We also seemed to be the only ones there actually trying to have a regular meal, except for the staff, who all seemed to be on their meal break at the exact same time and in the same area as us. And their portions appeared much larger as well! Hmmm … now I am beginning to see why no one else was dining there.

I was recently speaking with a friend of mine about things that seem to be missing here in Poland. We came to the conclusion that one major issue is the lack of a good breakfast. Now, my friend Andy is from the UK, so we agreed that a proper breakfast is a good fry-up … eggs, bacon rashers, link sausage, potato scones, baked beans, tomato, etc. (Andy also said that he believes there is a fat man inside him dying to get out). I disagree with him when he says that Polish food is sub-par (there are plenty of great meals around here), but for a country known for kielbasa, the lack of regular link breakfast sausage is a crying shame. I’m not saying that an English / Scottish / Irish breakfast is the healthiest thing in the world to toss down your gullet every morning, but I would really love to partake of this delicacy on occasion without having to frequent one of the two Irish pubs around town that charge an outrageous sum of money to indulge in this culinary delight. You are able to purchase a few of the ingredients at TESCO, but not all (I’m speaking of link sausage again). And it has actually only been in the last two years that bacon rashers have been available on the market. Yes, you could buy bacon, but not sliced in strips. Hey, you don’t want to have to put too much effort into making breakfast, do you? Also, there are no fast food chains that specialise in breakfast menus either. The golden arches doesn’t even have a breakfast menu! You can get a coffee and cheeseburger at 7 am, but no sausage biscuit. The lack of these has not made me want to run back to America or Scotland and unleash my inner portly being, but I do hope that with the influx of so many British tourists jumping on cheap flights to come here and partake of the cheap alcohol, they may just push the locals to start stocking or producing a larger variety of breakfast options … I mean, really, what cures a hangover better than a greasy fry-up and a can of Irn Bru?

Here in Kraków we have been celebrating 750 years of the founding of the city. Well, I say celebrating in the sense that the city put a few stages on the main square (Rynek Głowny) and organised a few events. On Friday evening, some of these events were televised on TVP, one of the state owned public broadcasting channels. Now, it is relatively sufficient to say that the stage acts and performers were not anything to get exceedingly excited about on this particular evening (a few average bands, some comedians, cabaret acts, etc.), unlike Sunday evening when jazz great Tomasz Stańko performed, but what I wish to draw attention to is one particular cabaret act that did a short sketch and song on the stage in the early evening. It consisted of two men acting as if they were washing dishes in a restaurant in London and a portly woman as their boss. The lyrics of the song were a dig at the fact that so many Poles have taken off for the UK in order to earn more money (whether as kitchen help, masons, architects, etc.) than they can earn in their home country. This in itself was amusing, but the Polish lady that portrayed their English boss then went on to berate and yell at the two workers with comments in English like “Get to fucking work” and “Move your fucking asses”. I can curse with the best of ’em, but I think that if you were trying to promote the artistic and cultural elements of your 750 year-old city on the the historic market square (the main tourist attraction) in front of thousands of local residents and English speaking tourists, would you repeatedly use the word “fuck”? Not to mention that, as stated previously, it was still relatively early in the evening (around 20:30) when many children are roaming the square, buying noise-makers from street vendors (who, in my opinion, should be executed on the spot for selling those damned annoying things) or sitting at one of the many outdoor restaurants with their parents getting that last ice cream of the day for desert. “Hey daddy … what does she mean by ‘move your fucking asses’?” Yes, “fuck” is an English word, but you would be hard pressed to find an individual from any country anywhere in the world that doesn’t know this one! Again, let me say, televised on “public” TV. Makes you feel proud, doesn’t it? Apparently, there have been a few news articles concerning how low the standards were for this gala event … and in true political fashion … no one is sure of who to exactly blame for organising some of these events.