Final Bon Voyage

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Somerset Perry

Prof. Tilden

Creative Nonfiction

March 32, 2009

The Lotus Fruit Vaccine

Turn off Caada onto Olive Hill, heading west. The ponies pen on the left, the always

unsettled lot on the right. Put down the visor if the suns too strong but notice the mountains in

the distance and how the brightness makes them seem farther away and taller. Slow if another car

crosses the little bridge at the same time as you. Stop if theres a truck. Always slow for horses.

Check for someone coming out of the Adams driveway. Look out for bikers in their

nylon suits. Olive trees on the right before the right turn, away from the white gateposts, up the

hill under the pines. If Helens walking with Mrs. Gessow, say hello. Still, slow for horses, and

wave to their riders.

Crest the hill and slip out from the pines before gliding down its other side. Mailboxes on

the right, the big oak tree that shades the postmans nap on the left. Approach the hill to the left,

nosing forward to see if someones coming--Dad insists--lean your whole body forward and

look. If no ones coming, pass the trail gate on its left and give firm gas to overcome the hills

steep grade. Have children push on the backs of the front seats if further propulsion is needed.

The canyon dropping off to the right, bay and oak trees. Once the road has leveled, continue

through the gate and lean with the road as it sways to the left. Turn back to the right around the

chestnut tree as the road begins to rise again. If the sun is hitting the oak leaves in a way that

makes them almost twinkle, slow down and enjoy it. As you enter the driveway, avoid Papillon

and see the most beloved sight in my world: home.

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Pile out of the car with brothers: Beau, Byron, Sebastian and Winslow. Wait for Sebastian

to enter through the side door and open the front door. Scratch behind Papillons ear and call him

a good, good dog, yes, a goooood dog. Bring the luggage into the foyer. If theres gear to be put

away, tell Winslow to take it to the garage and ignore his complaints. Attempt to avoid being the

one to bring Moms luggage to her room, but do it if youre told. Look through the mail but dont

make a mess of it or Mom will be angry. Look through the fridge and take a bite of whatever

there is to eat. Go up to your room. Make sure everythings the same; make sure the rug, the bed-

ding and the wall paper are all blue; make sure you can see the Bay out the window; make sure

your favorite books are there.

If everythings the same, youre home.

Call a friend and tell him about your trip.

*

At the end of August 2007, I pack two large suitcases, a smaller roller bag, my

green Conservation International backpack and my guitar and board an Air France flight from

San Francisco to Paris, then another to Strasbourg, a small city in the Alsace that butts directly

against Germany. I return to the United States on the 21st of December, having spent my last

night walking around the Strasbourg Cathedral, its spires hidden in fog, and pass winter break in

three U.S. cities as well as Costa Rica

On January 13th, a short four weeks later, I board another flight to Milan, better prepared,

more reluctant, this time without my guitar. My twin brother Sebastian has left two days earlier

for San Sebastian, Spain with our friend Charlie (I dont how much the citys name factored in

his decision, but it must have to some degree). In May, once spring had finally (finally) come to

Europe, I fly home, departing from Lisbon, with Sebastian and my oldest brother Beau.

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It is my third year of college at Georgetown University and I am studying abroad, to learn

French and Italian, to see more of the world. I am learning to live somewhere else. I am rectify-

ing anti-American prejudices. I am reading works in their original. I am continuing my pilgrim-

age eastward, away from San Francisco and my edge of the Western world towards its heart. I

am digging deeper in the sand to find something solid, though Im not sure Im digging in the

right place. I am comparing California gold to the precious metals of other lands. I am not going

to meet people, necessarily; I have enough friends. I am, perhaps, pushing myself to a place

where I can justify being lonely when I have so many reasons to feel loved, because Ive always

had those lonely moments, especially when its raining. Or Ive written this in my notebook. I

dont know if I believe it. In a more positive light, I could say I am giving myself time to think,

or new things to think about.

I am not Odysseus, pulled away from home by obligation and kept away by fate. My own

volition compels me, or a fragment of it does. I am like a child on a swing, kicking myself higher

to see if I will come back to rest in the same place, wondering what will happen if I swing a full

circle. I am pushing against my orbit even though I adore gravity.

I am tasting the Lotus Fruit, testing its honey-sweetness against the salt of Pacific sea air.

*

Ive made new friends: Matt from New Hampshire, Ingrid from Detroit, Katherine from

upstate New York. On September 18th, we sit in a McDonalds near the Strasbourg train station

because it has WiFi, or weefee as the French call it. Our clothes are still relatively American,

still show color, yet to be muted to gray, brown and black by the imminent Europeanization.

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We have just bought train tickets to Paris; now we need to find a place to stay. Matt is

looking up hostels, taking the lead, and we ultimately settle on Htel Bastille. It is cheap and not

too far from the center of the city.

Exhilaration will push out of our chests into smiles on our faces as we near the Gare de

lEst the next morning. The allure of Paris will be inescapable and undeniable, the truest of

clichs. We will be kept awake by loud voices outside the thin walls at night and by the trash

truck every morning. We will laugh spontaneously in the middle of the night because we know

none of us have been able to fall asleep. Matt will throw a wedge of bad cheese out the hotel

window. We will drink wine in the hilariously small room and Katherine will start to giggle after

her first glass.

We will see everything, aside from the Moulin Rouge. We will walk in the sun by the

Canal Saint Martin. Our French will be complimented by the nicest waiter in France at a restaur-

ant near the Jardin de Luxembourg. We will sit at an expensive lounge with bad margaritas and

retell our romantic histories. We will find the Eiffel Tower easily but leave it with difficulty as

we stumble unknowingly past Mtro stops. We will see The Mona Lisa but I will like The

Raft of the Medusa more, with its startling corpses and its ship on the horizon. We will become

good friends.

But we are not in Paris yet. Our bags wait to be packed. Our parents wait to be called and

told about the first trip were taking while studying abroad. All of it, as of now, lies ahead and we

are free to imagine what color the Seine is on a partly-cloudy afternoon. There is so much to look

forward to.

*

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Matt, Shannon and I had arrived in Marseilles before dawn on October 8th and dropped

our bags off at the hotel then walked along the quais of the Vieux Port, watched the garbagemen

drinking their coffees before eating breakfast. Later, we will walk by the fishermen unloading

their catch from battered boats directly into their stands, the fish flopping on their sides, oc-

topuses with their legs splayed in every direction. We will board the ferry to the Chteau dIf

where I will be underwhelmed by old televisions showing old film productions of The Count of

Monte Cristo. Later still, we will watch England beat France in the Rugby World Cup and be

congratulated by our French waitress. Mais non, nous sommes amricains.

But now we are climbing towards the highest point in Marseilles where Notre Dame de la

Garde keeps a quiet watch over the slumbering southern city. The sun accompanies us higher

into the sky and every step reveals another block of red roofs and beige walls. A plane passes at

altitude behind la bonne mre, the statue of the Virgin and Child that sits atop the churchs belfry,

and I snap a picture. A man throws a ball for his dog to fetch on a field far below us. The barks

echo up to us. We walk the final 50 yards and enter the church.

It is a sanctuary, hushed and undeniably sacred. The holy water stares me in the face. Old

marseillais walk in and take their seats on the worn pews. Above the altar shines a mosaic of an

ancient boat with a light blue and white striped sail, the Marseilles logo in the middle. Mobiles of

model ships hang from the ceiling. Anchors and more ships float above the red and white marble

of the columns and arches. Let all those who go to sea return, the walls seem to murmur, a prayer

I could say with conviction. I am less an atheist when I walk out than when I walked in.

*

I am awake in late November, the loneliness ahead of me, the white walls painted gray by

a cloudy Strasbourg morning. It is still almost dark, the diffused sunlight barely brighter than the

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angled streetlights that lit my room in the earlier hours, and it is cold. I go about my routine with

purpose, showering quickly, not allowing myself to wince at the cold air that surrounds me as I

dry off. I eat my breakfast: three pieces of round toast, cut from a baguette, topped with jam and

peanut butter. My host mother has bought peanut butter religiously from the international foods

store since I told her that it was what I ate for breakfast, although in truth I usually dont eat

breakfast at all.

My backpack and suitcase were packed the previous night according to a list I begun a

few days ago. Backpack: passport in the Velcro pocket, iPod in the slot behind it, pens and journ-

al, magazines against my back, then the official documents, books stacked next to them. Suit-

case: chargers and my rail rebate pass in the smallest pocket, second pair of shoes and a raincoat

squished into the hump, another sweater, shirts, jeans, boxers, socks, toiletries in the main com-

partment. Packalogy, (n.), the science of packing. I trundle out into the morning and board the

tram to the station. I buy some magazines and settle contentedly into my seat.

En route from Strasbourg to the Gare de lEst in Paris on the new TGV (trs grande

vitesse -very big speed!), I look out the window. Fog hangs down over the oak trees in large

meadows, the vapor and grass pouring into misty lakes as if they were drains. The train tilts

around a curve, expanding my view. Small farmhouses huddle against stands of forest as winter

begins to make itself felt. I pour through my magazines and books, cherishing the enforced

solitude of the physical here-to-there portion of my trip when there is nothing to do but read.

When I look up again, the train has left the fog behind and we are nearing Paris (very, very grand

speed!).

After disembarking, I check my rollie in a locker, board the Metro, and head off merrily

to the Italian embassy, my backpack swaying behind me. As Ive chosen to study in Strasbourg

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in the fall semester and Milan in the spring, I need to perform a feat of bureaucratic ballet, ob-

taining a visa for Italy while somehow holding on to my passport. Ive readied myself, mentally

if not practically, to speak French or Italian--do your worst, paper pushers!--and allowed myself

ample time. I alight at the Italian Embassys Metro stop well before my appointment, the very

existence of which I am proud, considering I had extracted it through repeated phone calls

between the hours of 10:00 and 14:00 on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, many of which went

unanswered or were inadvertently disconnected.

On the Rue de Varennes, a black gate below an Italian flag opens through a large white

faade into a courtyard. I speak with the guard, telling him that I have an appointment. I compre-

hend relatively quickly that I need to go across the street, and ring the bell. I cross the street to

another building, this one more daunting. Its large green double doors are closed, and dont seem

to be in the habit of opening. This buildings Italian flag is high above me, on the second story of

a building set back from the road.

I ring the bell and, after explaining that I have an appointment, am assaulted by a barrage

of Italian, which is repeated in Italian, French, Italian again, then finally accented English that

squeaks out of the intercom. I still dont understand but try to be respectful.

Pi lentamente, per favore. Slower, please.

...below the doorbell.

Come?

Look at the sign below the doorbell.

The what?

The sign.

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Immediately under the doorbell or, one might say, right below my nose, a sign says, in

French, Italian and English: For visa appointments, please go to the Italian Consulate. 17, Rue

Conseiller Collignon, 75116 Paris, France.Fantastique! My planning is paying off!

I retreat back to the Svres-Babylone Metro stop where I had alighted in a fit of hubris

forty-five minutes earlier. With the help of a friendly Parisian--theyre more common than legend

would have it--I ascertain that the quickest way will be by bus, a mode of transport I hadnt used

in my previous visits to Paris. I board, the door closes and the bus clunks its way out to the 17th

Arrondissement.

Here, farther from the city center, greenery is more common. A cluster of trees hide the

Italian Consulate, presumably to keep bothersome inquiries at a minimum and leisure time with

cigarettes and magazines at a maximum. I cross over its lawn and into its below-street level door

where an Italian guard points me through a metal detector. I pass with flying colors.

Astonishingly, the line Im supposed to wait in is short. Im at the front in a moment--this

will be a breeze! I am given a numbered ticket and told to sit down. Im waiting on Window #7

and before too long my number is called--a breeze! Recognizing that I am American, the man be-

hind the window asks me which language I prefer. I say that my French is better than my Italian,

hoping it wont displease him, but he responds in well-spoken English so thats what we speak--a

breeze will literally blow the visa into my passport (with the help of songbirds)! He takes my pa-

pers, listens to my plight, asks his supervisor a question and tells me, kindly and politely, We

cant give you a visa here. Youll have to do it in the US.Finito.

My only task having proved impossible, I wander around Paris, not knowing what to do

as I wait for my overnight train to Berlin. I go to the Muse Guimet, an Asian art museum, where

I learn that Alexander the Great invaded Afghanistan. I peruse to the Louvre, where vague, ro-

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mantic notions of getting lost give way to genuine confusion among expressionless Medieval

statues. By the time I find my way out, I feel the edge of anxiousness as my vague calculation of

how long it will take me to go to the Gare de lEst, get my bag and get to the Gare du Nord be-

gins to seem mistaken. I go to the Gare de lEst, get my bag and get to the Gare du Nord with

hours to spare, confirming my miscalculation.

The evening has brought rain and the unconsciously anticipated loneliness makes its ap-

pearance. I appreciate it, for at first it is an adventure. I bustle without a destination around the

station, check my departure (not even on the board yet), see if there are any more magazines I

should get, then sit down at the large caf and order a coffee, then a beer. Grande, sil vous plait.

During my first beer, I read. During my second, I write, about drinking beer alone in a foreign

city after a listless day spent looking at 12th-century Vietnamese sculptures. By the end of the

second, my hunger is unavoidable so I amble around a corner and up some stairs looking for a

change of scenery till I find a restaurant with reasonable prices, comparable to the caf down-

stairs. I sit down on their terrace, which overlooks the trains as they caterpillar in and out. Globu-

lar street lamps that evoke of Fitzgerald and Hemingway light the way towards Brussels, Amster-

dam and much farther Berlin. Once a waitress brings me the menu, I realize that I am at the same

restaurant where I drank my beers earlier. It has two floors. I order another beer, along with some

food, and listen to passersby.

A group of businessmen speaking English strut jovially, one of them saying, Now, let

me tell you about fixed income! eliciting a chortling chorus of haw-haws. A EuroStar train

leaves for London. Half an hour before my train is scheduled to leave, I find its platform number,

go to board, asking the German conductor whether this is the right train to Berlin.

Yes, it is, he responds, in an angry goose-like honk.

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Questions are apparently not appreciated.

Would you like coffee or tea in the morning? he asks, clipboard in hand.

Tea, I say.

Answers are.

He shows me to my berth--top bunk!--where I read for a while before taking a magazine

to the dining car, where I read some more. I drink a glass of wine as a group of high school stu-

dents order beers. This is normal for them, the junior year trip to Germany. The whole class is

coming, all of them in black coats. My magazine or my wine runs out. I go back to the berth,

climb into my bunk and fall asleep.

At 4am, the conductor comes to wake the man below me. Two hours later, he wakes me,

giving me my tea then setting me adrift among the various levels of the Hauptbahnof. Outside, it

is raining. I sit on benches, reading, eventually taking a taxi to our hotel in Mitte, a borough in

the south of the city (note the third person possessive pronoun). Our room wont be ready until

2pm so I eat breakfast in the hotel restaurant and, leaving my bags behind the reception desk,

walk out into the city with a wall in its head.

Ive never seen so many shades of gray, but there is color, too. A small coffee shop, its or-

ange and purple awning retracted; a large soccer pitch bordered by a tangle of unkempt trees; a

double-peaked circus tent behind a chain-link fence, its red sign with yellow lettering, peeling as

if each drop of rain looses a shard of paint, which it probably in fact does. I return to the hotel

wondering whether I saw the downtown--if so, it wasnt much to look at. Finally tired of reading,

I collapse on a couch in a corner of the hotel lobby, the International Herald-Tribune unopened

on my lap. I wait a while, a while longer, a bit more, a bit longer, till my friend walks through the

door, and I am no longer alone.

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The trip devolves into images: Alexanderplatz at night, waiting in line then standing in

the viewing gallery on the TV Tower, the city fanning out in every direction, not much worth

seeing; the chic modern decoration at an expensive stir-fry restaurant stumbled upon in the dark

and dark red Portuguese wine; youngsters tubing down a snow slope constructed in the middle of

downtown; a Christmas fair with small wooden cuckoo clocks; clouds out the hotel window, but

not the hoped-for rain that would keep us bedridden; brown eyes pausing, then looking away; an

aimless coffee in a Starbucks on a pedestrian-only street; roasted chestnuts on most corners; a

museum with nice art that is smaller than it appeared from the outside; the Berlin Wall; Check-

point Charlie and its amateurish museum; silence; teenagers asking where the best nightclubs

are; the Brandenburg Gate in early afternoon, the sun already low in the sky, the chariot on top

heaving its way towards night behind wide-eyed horses. The words of our conversations are ex-

cised from my memory as they are spoken by a stringent, spectacled editor who is loath to let

pointless details distract a story.

Berlin is my least favorite trip, of those that I can recall. Sometime later, though, I realize

that if I had been presented with a train ticket back to Strasbourg Id still have kept my too-thin,

too-short sleeping berth across Germany and enjoyed the tea upon arrival.

*

My twin Sebastian and I lie in our beds, arranging our blankets to avoid the stinging slice

of sunlight that slips through a space between the slatted screens. The phone has rung a couple of

times over the past hour and a half. We answer probably every other time. Outside, tropical birds

call and monkeys make the tree branches shake. If we stood on the porch, we would be able to

see the sun shining off the bay in front of our hotel. We are on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, a

few days before New Years.

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A knock on the door, and we both wait to see who will get up to open it. He does, then

scurries back into bed. My mom is in the shadow of the entranceway. She wants us to get up--a

fair complaint--but then she wants us to take a five-hour roundtrip drive inland to see a volcano

and go ziplining, which we take issue with. Theres another zipline closer that we prefer. Weve

been surfing every day this week. Were tired.

Exasperated, my mom appeals to our youthful curiosity.

Wheres your wanderlust, guys? she says, with something between feigned and actual

incredulity.

Were unsure at the moment. Our beds are comfortable. While my parents make the trip

inland, Byron, Sebastian and I go to a closer zipline, where we are the last riders of the day.

Later in the same trip, we sail north up the coast as the sun sets. It is night when we an-

chor a couple hundred yards off a long beach. We are hoping to find a turtle as it lays its eggs on

the beach. The boats lamps are the only lights aside from the stars and once we have stopped

they are turned off, along with engine. Turtles use the relative brightness of the ocean to orient

themselves; stray light could confuse them enough to sabotage their egg-laying. The waves are

exhaling on the beach somewhere in the distance. The stars are full-throated above us.

My parents, my four brothers, my oldest brothers fiance and I, we all take surfboards

and jump one by one into a fireworks display of bioluminescence, striking out immediately for

shore. Plankton crowd the surface of the water and sparkle when touched, as if our every stroke

forged a fleeting mirror that reflected the stars above us. Sebastian and my brother Beau are the

strongest paddlers and they drive ahead of the rest of us. Winslow, the youngest, falls behind

with my parents. Our guide Win stays behind to help him. Were strung out like a convoy instead

of the herd that we planned, my older brother Byron and I occupying the middle. As the beach is

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indiscernible from the ocean in the darkness, I can only paddle towards the sound of the waves.

When I get closer, they fill a larger and larger angle of my auditory vision; I now know only that

Im not paddling away from the beach. Soon, though, swells begin to rise beneath me and my

board isnt perpendicular to the beach as it should be. A wave passes, almost cresting, then anoth-

er, this one crumbling, and I am deposited lightly on the beach like driftwood. As I stand, the

thin, receding remnants of a wave make a more honest mirror than the plankton.

Once everyone has arrived, we assemble on the beach, putting our surfboards out of the

tides reach. Flashlights are distributed, though not enough for everyone, and our search begins.

Placing our fingers over the flashlights beam, we follow the dimmed light, quickly breaking into

scouting parties. A turtle mustbe found. Various false leads are pursued. A clump of seaweed, a

piece of wood, a slight depression, Winslow, everything looks like a turtle, but nothing is. Focus

wanes. My brothers and I take to tripping each other. Mom and Dad shush us. We sneak up or

pretend that the game is over to be more effective in our attacks. Our footsteps sink into the

damp sand, deeper along our escape routes, shallower where we tiptoe, relaxed when we let the

game go for a few minutes.

Alone for a moment after examining a particularly promising accumulation of seaweed, I

look up at the stars. Theyre schizophrenic, flashing blue and red, ready to burst. The Milky Way

is a bridge between the two mountain ridges that bracket the beach. A piece of sand falls into the

atmosphere above, streaking into nothingness. I think about what I should wish for, wish for it,

and wonder if its what I should have wished for. Minutes later theres a call from down the

beach: Win has found a turtle.

Assembled again, we circle around it, jostling to see, dimmed flashlights trained on the

turtles rear which hovers over a yard-deep hole it has just dug. Eggs begin to fall. According to

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Win, the turtle has entered a trance-like state that it will remain in until it has finished laying. I

am slightly repulsed but mesmerized. We are all silent, no shushing necessary. Years ago, this

turtle was an egg just like these which hatched a baby turtle that scuttled its way into the shining

sea. If one of these eggs is lucky, it will eventually complete the same cycle.

After the turtle has laid its eggs, it fills up the hole and smoothes over the top, to disguise

the nest from predators, then becomes a floating circle on the waves before it disappears into the

depths. We trudge back and find our surfboards but are less lucky with the boat. Its lights are still

off and we cant see it. Win uses a flashlight to beam unintelligible Morse code over the water.

The thought of spending a mild night on this beach is creeping into my mind when a red light

nods up and down in the distance. Yes, says the boat, Im here. Arms still tired, we mount our

surfboards again, paddling like baby turtles through the ocean towards our own orienting light.

Back at the boat, our crew hauls us back on board and we start back to the hotel. I sit on

the upper deck watching lightning flicker almost silently just over the horizon before I lay down,

the boat rocking me irresistibly towards sleep. The stars pass above and my eyes blink them

slowly out of focus.

I havent slept in the same bed for two continuous weeks in three and a half months. I

wont do so until July.

*

In late March, Milan is shrinking my peripheral vision, keeping my eyes on the spot

where my bus to class should appear (unless theres a strike, or construction, or inexplicable

delays). Late at night, I smoke cigarettes on my 5th-floor balcony and the streetlights blink red

up and down Via Gioia. In late afternoon, I take a pretty picture of the mountains from the bal-

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cony over the apartment building roofs but most of the time my gaze is trained on the ground in

front of me as I go to school and back.

So the faint breath of spring that accompanies my departure is welcome. It is 2pm on a

Friday when I take the elevator down to the lobby of my apartment building. I say, Ciao to our

doorlady, who has given me more than one verbal beating in stacatto Italian about the loudness

of my roommates and I. Trees are rare in this part of Milan but the few that confront the

shoulder-to-shoulder apartment buildings show new leaves and buds. In front of the train station,

more trees confirm that spring is almost here but almost isnt enough for me. I board a train

headed for the Alps, my destination far beyond them, taking my place in a compartment with a

family of four--mother, father, teenage daughter and younger son--and a tall, dark-haired man.

The Italians do not do suburbs well, at least here in the north--the metropolis doesnt re-

lax its grasp willingly--but before long my smooth Cisalpino train is approaching the mountains.

We climb up towards Como, where everyone knows George Clooney has a house, where the

small town takes up the only flat land and houses cling to the steep banks that plunge into the

lake. Higher still, we pass into Switzerland and through Lugano. A decaying, forgotten church

with a small lawn sits squeezed between the tracks and the lake, hoping it wont be squeezed to

bits (the old rock crumbling into sand before the wind blows it into the lake). The train slows for

other trains ahead. The father takes the son into the corridor to look at the scenery, ending a

growing tit-for-tat between him and the daughter. I turn my iPod on and take out a magazine.

Somewhere above the castle of Bellinzona, I fall asleep.

When I awake two hours later, I am wedged between two ridges, confronting a dilemma

like the neglected church. The train barely fits. Theres snow on the ground and snow falling.

Disoriented and almost dizzy, I catch my breath, inhaling a gust of fear. I dont have the clothes

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for snow like this. Im supposed to meet Sebastian in five hours and he hasnt responded to my

text messages. Somehow I wont make it to Basel, where were supposed to meet--Im sure of it.

Emerging from the pass, we cling perilously to a steep slope, like the houses around Lake Como.

Below the valley floor is spotted by A-frames with steep roofs. And, I imagine without reason,

empty parlors.

An hour later, the clouds have cleared and the terrain has flattened. The train glides along

the Zurichsee into Zurich as night falls but Im still disconcerted, still unsettled. A round German

man pokes a hole in a bun and puts a sausage in it for me, grumbling but complying when I tell

him in English that I had actually asked for the other type. My voice is taut when I ask a con-

ductor if this is the train for Basel.

Yes, this is the train to Basel, he says, putting me at ease with his mild accent.

So I board, sit for an hour and get off in Basel.

I have been in Basel before, in the fall, on the way from Strasbourg to Geneva. On the

way back, Matt, Katherine, Ingrid and I ran through a long hallway past cheap brasseries and

food stands, across the Franco-Swiss border and almost onto the wrong train before we leaped

onto the right one, the last train of the night to Strasbourg.

This time, Im alone and the benches are cold. Sebastian still hasnt responded to my

texts, nor have Charlie or Kevin, my high school friends who are with him. I watch the station

clock turn in the middle of a large mural depicting the valley below (a view I have to trust as the

valley rests in darkness). It ticks away till Im wondering whether I will have to run once again

through the Basel train station, hoping that we find the right train.

Instead, I see Sebastian as he reaches the top of an escalator, Charlie and Kevin having

somehow escaped my gaze but turning around now. They look motley--there is no other word.

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Sebastian wears a red beanie on his head and a scraggly mustache on his face, testimony to a bet

hes made with Charlie. His suitcase was lost on the way from Ireland to Interlaken, along with

his phone charger (and his extra pairs of boxers). Kevin lost his phone at a bar. His shoes always

seem too big and they clomp up like horses to greet me. Charlie has the mustache as well as the

long red hair hes been growing out as part of a pact we made back in August. His phone is out of

batteries. Theres a reason for their silence.

We all exchange greetings and hugs, laughing at each others appearance.

How are you doing, man?

Whats going on?

Wheres our train?

Lets find our seats.

A few minutes after we board, the train departs for Amsterdam.

We go to the dining car with a deck of cards and they tell me about their previous adven-

tures. They drove all over Ireland with Charlie operating the stick shift, to Galway and the Cliffs

of Moher. They were in Dublin for Saint Patricks Day--it was what youd expect--and went to

the Guinness Factory, where they learned to pour the perfect pint. In Interlaken, they canyon-

jumped and fell for 200 feet before a harness and line caught them, sending them streaking and

howling down a snowy gorge. Sebastian did his jump in the proper outfit--cap, shoes and soon-

to-be-ratty tighty-whiteys--as Kevin shows me on his camera. Theyve been having fun and

when they ask me again how Im doing, this time in earnest, I shed the exams and the loneliness

and start to share it with them.

Weve ordered dinner and bottles of wine. We feast as we playpusoy, the card game

thats consumed us since Kevin taught it to us weeks ago. Im still learning but progress quickly.

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We order another bottle of wine and Kevin convinces us to teach the game to the Swiss 20-year-

olds who are getting drunk on the other side of the car. We dont get far before they lose pa-

tience. One of the girls calls it stupid but we are engrossed, awkwardly withdrawing back to our

table and continuing with our game. We dont think its stupid! In fact, we continue playing

through dessert and, when the waiter explains that the car is closing in 15 minutes (in French I

cant understand, necessitating the use of pen and napkin, 23:30, quinze minutes), I ask him if

theres another place we could play (again the pen and napkin, voiture 79).

Car 79 turns out to be the bicycle car, not a piece of furniture in site. We spread out across

the floor with a bottle of wine weve brought, continuing to play, the train stopping and starting

beneath us, but talk turns to our friend Kate and how skinny she is. Though were all close to her,

Charlie and I are the closest. We agree to talk to her about it the next time we see her (a pact un-

fortunately less durable than our no-haircuts accord).

The train quiets. No one has passed through in over half an hour. When we slow and stop

at an empty train station somewhere in the middle of Germany, Kevin produces a joint (Im

aghast, being the cautious one--were on an international train!) which we smoke on the plat-

form. The conductors look, dont mind and tell us when the trains about to leave. Sebastian gets

greedy, trying to get one more drag before the automatic doors slide shut. They close on his

hand, almost his nose, and the butt falls next to the tracks as we pull away.

Our imaginations properly primed, the vacant space of the bicycle car becomes a stage

and we concoct a drama: Somerset - Circus Director; Sebastian - Washed-up Acrobat; Charlie -

Up-and-Coming Acrobat; Kevin - Up-and-Coming Acrobats Agent. Sebastians looking for one

more shot at the big time but he knows Charlie will surpass him if he doesnt get it. Kevin wants

to ride Charlie (flipping, falling, tumbling, soaring) all the way to the bank while Im simply a

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businessman, obsessed by the nightly take. The scene is building towards a climax (Sebastians

going to get one last shot) when somebody inadvertently hits Charlie in the crotch and he

crumples to the ground. Sebastian is leaning over him asking him, again and again, Charlie, are

you OK? With the script revised, Kevin and I follow our new cues and laugh ourselves to our

knees. We try other scenes, but none can live up to the first.

Tired, we return to our beds, which are, in fact, not beds but sleeper chairs that lean back

twice as far as normal chairs. I show Kevin a new song about Northern California and we sleep

surprisingly well.

Ten days later, I am riding on an InterCity train from Rome to Florence. Ive left Charlie

in Rome along with John, our friend who flew from Colorado to join us in Amsterdam (which

passed in a blur). Sebastian and Kevin left two days ago from Umbria, where we stayed at Johns

parents villa. While there, we made bruschetta and lots of pasta. We went to the college town of

Perugia and emptied the floor at a Brazilian samba bar. We drove to Assisi to see the tomb of

Saint Francis--San Francisco to the monks who founded a mission in his honor near the greatest

natural harbor on the west coast of the future United States. In Rome, Charlie and I got lucky,

catching city-wide free admission on the last Sunday of the month, though we couldnt figure out

what the different parts of the Forum were for.

But I am now on my way to see my friends from Georgetown. Outside the window, the

sun has set, leaving me to make the final hour of the ride in twilight. I have been to Florence be-

fore. I lived here when I was two, before I can remember, and I visited once in January. I return

for a special occasion: my friend Tim is celebrating the official remission of his cancer the fol-

lowing day. It has been five years since he was diagnosed.

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I am familiar with the city--because of January, not 1988--so while arriving alone after

dark could be disorienting it is in this case slightly comforting. I recognize the McDonalds

where friends got Big Macs the last time I was here. I cross the street that leads to my hostel

from the last trip.

I remember the path to the Duomo and take a right down Via Roma, entering the Piazza

della Repubblica, a large square that is illuminated as if it were Christmas.My hostel is just offthe opposite corner, its door set back from the Piazza under a breezeway. I knock ineffectuallya

few times before realizing I need to ring the bell. Once I do, a young man buzzes me in and lets

me through a door on the third level.

I call Tim and Kevin, his roommate and my friend (not to be confused with the previous

Kevin, though Ive done it myself), and they tell me that theyre going to stay at the Villa that

night, the Georgetown compound where they live and study. I am relieved, in a certain respect: I

smell like the subway, I havent shaved since we arrived in Umbria and I wouldnt mind some

moments alone. The manager lets me borrow a towel--it seems clean--and I shower, Roman

smog running down out of my long hair. I shave slowly, though the hostel rules set a limit of 15

minutes bathroom time, and get in bed happily clean, ready for sleep. Then the kind Turkish man

who got in bed before me starts to snore as if he were a chainsaw.

Surprisingly, I wake in the morning well-rested even as the blinds fail to keep out the

sunshine. Tim and Kevin will have class all day so I will go up to the Villa for dinner but now I

have time to explore and read. When I was last here, there was a tower on the other side of the

Arno that we didnt get to, so I head for it, passing the Florentine boar and rubbing its nose. It

takes me fifteen minutes to reach it and once there I learn that it is called the Porta San Niccol

and access to its observation post is prohibited.

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A better view awaits me, though. Behind the tower a grotto splits two paths that lead up

the hill towards the Piazzale Michelangelo. I walk slowly, pausing to take pictures as I become

level with top of the Duomo than rise above it. I am carrying my book and I sit to read when I

feel like it. The Piazzale is teeming with vendors and tourists when I arrive so I stop for just one

shot then continue upwards, knowing that somewhere above lay San Miniato al Monte, a famous

church.

Fifty yards further up, I find a simple church, not San Minato. It is emptied for restora-

tion, its walls whitewashed. It seems that it will be charming once it is restored and linger in its

measured light, none of it colored by stained glass. Outside again, I find a second appealing

bench in a small park and sit down to read more. A young Italian couple lays down on the grass

and starts smoking weed. I savor the scent but think it would be impolite to ask for a taste and I

dont want the carabinieri arresting me, or maybe I just doubt my Italian.Posso avere un hit?

It doesnt sound right. Another couple with two brown dogs walks by before an old lady sits at a

bench that faces mine directly and starts feeding the birds. I decide that I am encroaching--her

routine doesnt need to be disturbed by an americano--andclimb higher.

Five more minutes and I am at San Miniato al Monte, approaching as I will discover by a

secondary route. My view of the city has been obscured by trees since the Piazzale but after I

walk past the entrance to the cemetery and onto the courtyard in front of the white-and-blue

church, the Duomo, the Arno and somewhere the Ponte Vecchio are revealed again, beaming up

at me in the bright spring sunlight. I step into the church. It is beautiful and ornate but also dark

and cool. I circle around behind the altar and up the stairs to its second level but dont stay long:

I want to be outside. My thirst for altitude quenched, I tramp happily down the elongated steps of

Via di San Salvatore al Monte, past a yard filled with cats and a group of noisy French middle

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school who greet me loudly to impress their friends.Bonjour, I reply, walking past them back to

the Arno. It is late afternoon now. I eat a snack before preparing to go up to the Villa.

Freshly showered once again, I walk back to the train station, where the Number 7 bus

will take me up the hill to Fiesole. I just barely miss the 6:30 bus and am forced to wait for an-

other half an hour. While the bus is supposed to come every fifteen minutes, the intersection in

front of the station is complete gridlock, making this impossible. Im going to be late for dinner,

and call Tim to say so.

When the next bus finally comes, I am joined by two men with slicked hair wearing

American football jerseys. They banter loudly about nothing with their dyed-blonde spouses un-

til they start talking about Chris Farley movies and their sentences skip like a record as they try

to remember which film their favorites lines are from.

Its Tommy Boy, I say, turning around.

Yeah, they exclaim, loud as ever.

The bus lets me off at the central piazza in Fiesole and I walk down a steep thinning road

towards the Villa. Tim and Kevin come out to meet me and take me into the Villa. Dinner is al-

most over but there are enough leftovers for me. Aside from Tim and Kevin, it is all girls at the

Villa, most of whom I know from school or met on my last visit, and they are like family. I am

taken care of as a relative who stops by often and my plates are taken to the kitchen for me.

With dinner finished, Kevin, Tim and I take a guitar and Kevins computer out to a table

on the lawn, where we have beer and wine. Drinking is not allowed at the Villa, but we are celeb-

rating. This is not a normal night. The girls glide out, eyelids painted, shirts shimmering, and

perch themselves around the table. We sip our drinks, ducking when bats flutter overhead. The

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streetlights have come on in the city below us, showing an arterial road travelled by few cars.

The sun sets, turned dark red by the dust and smog.

A girl named Grace texts me, wondering where we are. I know her vaguely but she is

friends with one of my best friends at Georgetown She studies at the Villa but is living at the

house of an old couple nearby with 3 students and they have already descended to Florence. I

reply that we drinking in the garden, that well be down soon and ask where she is.

On the merry-go-round of course, she writes back.

Finishing the drinks, we careen down the hill. Once our tumble has been stopped by an

Irish bar coincidentally located right next from my hostel, we raise toasts to Tim and another girl

who is celebrating her birthday. We arrange ourselves around a table on the patio, taking pictures

that will later aid memories, but us boys are too impatient and decide to take seats at the bar to

order something more effective.

Weve drank some more when Grace walks up to me to say hello. She is dressed in black.

I will eventually learn how to describe her features--her eyes as a calm, horizonless sea; her hair

as gold made from straw--but for now she is simply very pretty, so I answer her greeting with

more intimate gestures: an arm around her waist, a short, smudged, inexplicable kiss. She pulls

away, worried that Kevin and Tim will see. I tell her, as discretely as I can, to meet me outside. I

dont know where I found this boldness, except, of course, the beer glass in front of me. She will

later tell me that I replaced the beer with my manners.

Outside, I stand in an awkwardly well-lit tunnel for what seems like forever, doubting,

but she does come and we are tangled in each other. She is familiar and foreign at the same time.

Its difficult for us to pull apart as we stumble around the city. I recognize street corners that I

walked on earlier that day. Her back is against a wall, her eyes tilted up towards the stars. A street

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light bathes half her face in supple light and the soft-sharp curve of her profile cuts a shadow on

the cobblestones on the edge of my peripheral vision. The Arno is somewhere around the corner

but we dont have time to find it.

With effort, we separate ourselves long enough to read a clock. The others have left me a

message apologizing for not saying goodbye, though I left them. She is worried and needs to get

back up the hill. We need to find her a taxi but theyve all put themselves to bed for the night.

The piazza around the Duomo is empty, as is its taxi stand. We speak with a group of young

Northern Europeans. They are pasting an elephant composed of newspapers onto a plywood

wall. We are back in Piazza della Repubblica, our orbit complete, when we finally find a taxi.

She has no money so I give her twenty Euro.

Im going to pay you back. You know that, right? she says.

Fortunately, she never will.

The next morning, it is spring more than ever, even if clouds have drifted in. I pack my

bag and call Tim to say I wont make it to the Villa for lunch. I have only enough money for the

slow train but it gives me time to read.

My book finished, I look out the window as the train snakes its way north among green

hills that are steep enough to excite but not treacherous. Tall, straight trees cluster in gullies. I

have a few boxes of pasta in my apartment that I will have to eat when I get home. The hills blur

together as I reminisce about the trip, about the different types of sunshine in Amsterdam, Um-

bria and Florence.

*

I walk out of a hockey arena on the edges of Prague in early May. The sun straddles the

horizon and an underwhelming high is making its way out of my body in orderly fashion. The

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neighborhood that was smothered in darkness when I walked into the arena five hours ago is now

revealed to be as drab as the rest of Prague without the imposing buildings and exciting lights of

downtown. My ears are ringing. I dont know how I ended up here. Sign are written with an al-

phabet I dont recognize.

I board a tram with Sebastian, Charlie, Sebastians friends from school and those friends

friends. My seat is uncomfortable and though I try to turn to see the passing buildings I spend

most of my time looking at the ground. After ten minutes, we get off and walk across the Charles

Bridge. The sun is now higher among scattered clouds and the statues of saints that line the

bridges eastern stone banister are looking down at me, their faces black in shade against the

blueing sky above.

Two days later, I board a bus alone at a similar hour, leaving the urban grays behind for

tall yellow grasses that shimmer in the cold morning sunlight. Disembarking at the airport, I use

my last korunas to buy a skeletal breakfast and two postcards. I start writing on one but forget to

start with the endearment I had planned. I start over on the other. Back in Milan, I send it to

Grace.

*

On my last full day in Europe, I awake in Lisbon on the Avenida de Liberdade in a hotel

room with white walls, with Beau and Sebastian and the remnants of Byrons early-morning de-

parture. He has left one of his sandals, and taken one of mine. Row after row of Mediterranean

buildings with terra cotta roofs and soft pastel walls lay out the window and the spire of a white

church rises above them on a distant hill.

We eat a light breakfast in the late morning and get into our large white van. It is filled

with surfboards, dirty clothes and sand from the beaches of southern Portugal. We do not need to

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clean it. Well be leaving tomorrow. We drive up the hills, looking for a gas station, then let the

car roll its way down to the edge of the Tagus, where we turn right and drive to the neighborhood

of Belm, Bethlehem in Portuguese. The sun is shining.

Having parked the car, we walk to the Mosteiro dos Jrominos, a long white church with,

yes, a red roof and, yes, white spires. We enter through an archway in the middle of its flank then

pass through wooden doors into the cool of the chapel. The ceiling is high, crossed by a web of

interconnecting arches, and stained glass windows temper the afternoon sunshine to a blissful

gold.

There are many tombs in the monastery. Two kings and two queens of Portugal lie paired

on either side of the altar: Manuel I and Maria of Aragon on the left; Joo III and Catherine of

Hapsburg on the right. Their pink marble sarcophaguses are almost ten feet tall, topped by their

crowns, and rest on the shoulders of gray marble elephants with real ivory tusks.

Closer to the entrance lie Vasco da Gama and Lus de Cames. Da Gama commanded the

first ships that sailed from Europe to India. Cames wrote Os Lusadas, a Homeric retelling of

Da Gamas voyages. I read it two years ago, for a class on Spanish and Portuguese history. Their

tombs sit on either side of the entrance, made of white marble with a statue of each man on top.

I admire these two men, the explorer and his chronicler, dead for half a century.

Exiting the chapel, we amble across a park and under the Avenida Braslia to the Padro

dos Descobrimentos, the Monument to the Discoveries, a rectangular slab of concrete that stands

52 meters high above the river. The bottom half of the slab is carved to resemble the gunwales of

a ship which extend into a prow that juts over the river.

At the prows tip stands a statue of Prince Henry the Navigator, holding a ship with full

sails; explorers, writers and priests gather behind him in glorious poses. Da Gama stares towards

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Africa from behind the Princes left shoulder, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. Cames is

further back, holding a bundle of scrolls that flow in waves down to his feet.

In the distance, the Ponte 25 de Abril spans the river. It is named after the date of Por-

tugals Carnation Revolution, which returned Portugal to democracy and freed its colonies. It

looks just like the Golden Gate Bridge. Lisbon is a sister city of San Francisco. I am on the West

Coast.

Closer to the Atlantic we can see the Torre de Belm. We walk past a makeshift restaurant

on the waterfront promenade and through a park to reach it. On the grass, kids are playing soccer

under the lengthening shadows of dark green trees and a band is strumming songs to a crowd of

picnickers, songs that are perfect for spring afternoons, songs that makes me think of Brazil. A

gangway traverses the shallow ten yards of water that separate the tower from the shore. Ive

read that it was originally built in the center of the river, as a fort and lighthouse, but was moved

to its current position by the Great Lisbon Earthquake in 1755. We cross the gangway and read

that the tower is currently closed.

It doesnt bother us a bit. The water is sparkling. The sky is clear. We return by a different

route, one block into the city from the shore, and the streets are quiet. We walk past the Mosteiro,

sitting down to eat dinner at a small restaurant with white table cloths and nervous dark-haired

waiters. For dessert, we wait in a long line at Pastis de Belm, the best pastry shop in Lisbon.

We have stumbled upon it and the cream-filled treats we buy become memories in the five

minutes it takes us to return to the car. The sun flows westward following the Tagus as we drive

between palm trees to the Avenida de Liberdade.

*

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Twenty four hours later, I walk through the sliding glass doors at the SFOs International

Terminal where Mom and Dad are waiting with Winslow and Kristin to take us home, all of them

smiling widely. I look out the window at Crystal Springs reservoir on the ride home and we exit

the freeway at Edgewood Road, the barren fire lane snaking its way into the hills above. Having

brought in my luggage, I walk slowly but purposefully up the stairs. On the door of my room are

two pieces of white paper my parents have decorated with felt-tipped markers. My moms script

is rounded and smooth, my dads scratchy, blurred by multiple traces. Like always, they both say,

Welcome home and We love you.

Documents

Final Bon Voyage