May Break III: Don't Panic

I recently finished reading a fine series of books written by a brilliant man named Douglas Adams. In this series, a small, black device plays a semi-trivial role; the device is called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and on its cover is inscribed "Don't Panic."

Don't Panic. Maybe that should have been the theme for Pug, Tymona, and my return trip from Greece. The story begins as we get off of a plane that flew from Athens to Stockholm. The next leg of our trip had us getting on a plane that flew from a different airport in Stockholm to Brussels, Belgium, and we had three hours to find this airport. But, as some travels go, things didn't work out as perfectly as we had hoped. In reality, the first airport in Stockholm was not in Stockholm at all. Oh, and neither was the second. We asked two ladies at information about how we could go about getting from Airport A to Airport B — I will continue to refer to them without names because, well, I don't know the names — and she told us that a bus goes between the two, looked at our itinerary, and decided we wouldn't make it. She then proceded to not help us at all. Well, we went about catching a train to Stockholm, which seemed like a better idea than sulking in Airport A about how we would never get home. Once in Stockholm, we asked a few people there about buses and trains that would go to Airport B. The next bus to leave for the airport would leave in an hour or so, but would get us to the airport slightly late. We tried the train station, and the train there would also be just a tad too late. Alright, time for plan, um, something. We had to take a taxi.

Our taxi driver seemed to be quite the incredible type of guy. He kindly told us how much it would cost to get to the airport, and told us it would be a fixed price. He looked at the itinerary, and contrary to certain other people in Sweden, assured us that he could get us to where we wanted to be at least forty-five minutes before our plane left. Okay, that sounded great, but we had no local money. So he even did this for us: he brought us to the ATM in his taxi. Wonderful. The rest of the, oh, hour-or-so long trip I spent listening to oldies Amerian music on the radio and hearing this jolly man chatter about all sorts of random things. Well don't you know it, he even got us to the airport on time!

Fast forward.Now we are in Brussels, Belgium. Getting to the nearest run-down, hardly safe train station turned out to be a bit of a challenge, but we made it, and we eventually arrived in Antwerp, Belgium. However, most trains only travel from 6am to midnight, and it was about midnight — we knew this in advance, but thought we would at least be in the Netherlands before we had to spend the night somewhere — so we were stuck in Antwerp for the night. We found some nice chairs in the train station and started to dose off when some friendly guards came and told us the station was closing, but would open again at 5am. Oh, just great, now we were in Antwerp with no place to sleep. Hostels, hotels, camp sites? Bah, don't need 'em is what I say. So, we started doing the most unsafe thing we could think of, we started roaming the streets, turning around whenever a street looked like it had too many strip-joints or bars for our liking, and eventually coming across an all night fry shop. Perfect, kindof. So, to avoid loittering, I purchased a family size box of fries at around 1am, and we took a seat. Thankfully, they were playing a DVD of Live8, which I don't really know what that is, but it had English music, good enough for me. And we sat, and sat, and ate our fries, and sat. About half way through the fries, Pug decided to patronize — the good way — the owners again by purchasing a few Cokes. That bought us a half an hour more or so, right? Later, another Coke, an ice cream, and it was suddenly 3:15am. We suspected the owners liked us, but we still didn't feel right staying there all night, so we headed off to roam again.

We ended up on a few benches near a big statue. We plopped down, thinking it was a fairly public area, somewhat highly visible, and if the police decided to drop on by and tell us we couldn't stay there, we could play stupid and move somewhere else. A few cops drove by, but none never stopped to tell us to leave; some of the locals weren't so kind. So, here was probably the craziest encounter: it is four in the morning, we were sitting in the middle of a foreign city, and a motorcycle, with no light on, rides up, and stops near us. One guy jumps off the back of the bike and says, um, something. I never know what they say. Usual bit about only knowing English, and he says, "You guys want some Ecstacy?" Of course, I laughed, he smiled, and then he jumped on the bike and rode off again, thankfully without incident. Other than that guy, it was mostly just homeless people wanting money that I was unwilling to give them; most would just walk away upon realizing that I only spoke Spanish, a ploy that probably wouldn't work in places like, um, Spain.

The sun would inevitably rise again, and as it did after we were already on a train back to home. Ah Hattem, it is so good to be home again. I can only imagine the feeling will be ten times better next weekend.