Naples: the first attempt, Thursday morning.

I couldn’t pick the sound. It was muffled and repetitive, and coming from a distant corner of my room. I knew there was something I needed to do, but my head and my body were two separate entities and neither of them wanted to move. It hit me like a wet sock. Naples, early flight, go to airport. I wouldn’t say I jumped out of bed, but I kind of bounced off the floor after attempting to get my head and body to work together. I was trying to find the sound, rummaging through a pile of clothes on the floor I narrowed it down to a pants pocket. I fished my phone out and tried to make out the numbers on the screen. It was blurry kind of angry. When my sight cleared everything else was not so much. 9:00am. I should have left before 8. Checkout closed at 9:40. For a moment I gave up, the idea of going back to bed was very appealing. But no! I could make it. Maybe I shouldn’t have showered, or checked Facebook… it doesn’t matter now, I did both these things, grabbed my shit, I’d packed the day before, and fled, quickly.

The night before involved a Cuban bar, several mojitos, gin, and a courageous amount of tequila. I was still drunk, and running
through the streets of Madrid. I was determined and was going to make it on time. The metro was rough. It’s hard being in such a hurry and just standing still, even if its on a moving object. I was willing it to go faster, a little. Mostly I was just listening to music and trying to keep some composure on a
crowded metro car. When I eventually made it to the airport terminal, I did it again… I ran! Running on travelators, you know the flat escalators, because that made me go faster. A woman who was trying to load her many suitcases onto the travelator saw me coming and quickly shuffled out of the way. I sped past her, “thhhaannkkkyyyoouuuu”, turned a corner and bam!! I was on the floor, and so was some other dude. His wife was confused, I was dizzy. Gathered myself off the ground, helped up my victim and apologised and explained my predicament and kept moving, I was close. So close. But. I saw the line and died a little, but thankfully there was a late check in counter that was free. I went from a run to a slide and hit the counter. I left home at 9:10, checkout closed at 9:40, it was 9:47. “I’m sorry it’s closed, it is not possible”. I died a little more.

Naples: the second attempt, Saturday morning.

I made it!!

Naples is a shit hole. It looks like someone dropped a bomb on it. But I love it. 


 
 
 
 

When I arrived in Vienna I was a little relieved. I hadn’t even bothered to find out what language they spoke there, I assumed Austrian, so when I approached the taxi rank I just slurred some English and pointed to the address I wanted on a piece of paper, Karlsplatz. 

“Yes of course that’ll be 30 euro, I’ll get a driver for you”,in fluent English. I decided to try this approach when I got back to Madrid, no dice. It’s a good thing too, so many words in German are so hard to say, especially if you try to read them. It’s a funky alphabet they have up there. It kinda feels like they are just making fun of language, I shouldn’t say these things. They are a lovely people, its just comical to listen to them speak.

The driver took me to his car and told me to get in. I hesitated as he motioned towards a slick black Mercedes; the thing was luxury, the kind you would expect to get chauffeured around in if you were an upmarket New York City
corporate type. “You’re joking right”, I said and jumped in the passenger seat while the driver dealt with my bag, “duuuuude, this shit is swanky, “I was pushing buttons and fiddling with dials, “what’s the deal here?” He laughed
at me and said, “in Vienna, we all drive Mercedes”. I guess that’s just how they roll.

After befriending some hostel folk we rolled out to a bar that was recommended by the friendly staff, and impossible to say. It was a trendy hipster joint with bad graffiti on the walls, old tour posters, barely a seat, and lazy Germans. The ne’er-do-well air was only masked by cigarette smoke and after about 10 minutes standing at the bar watching the two
bar staff chin wag and ignore people one of us signalled somewhat aggressively for a drink. We were after all, there to drink. The barman may as well have come over to us and said, “I really couldn’t give a fuck”. That was his swag. “That’s
fine; we’ll just take three beers then”. We drank, we talked, explored some more drinking holes, and after making some Austrian friends and playing darts, I was invited to drink with an old timer whose 60th birthday it was, and his family. Wonderful night.

 Vienna is a magical city. I would never have thought to go there if it wasn’t for a friend. Im not much of a daytime person. I like a city at night, when its true character comes out. City lights bring a city to life. It opens up, lures you in and says, ‘don’t worry; I’ll take care of you’. I wander the streets a lot at night, talking to people. Finding out its
little secrets. Attracted to the dark light. In schnitzel houses and beer halls we made the most of our Viennese escape till we landed in a club where I talked the night away with an Austrian girl. She was telling me all the things I should do there, but I couldn’t understand the words she was saying. And when I met the streets again the sun was out so I hid in a dark room and slept until it started to recede again. 

Im not sure how I feel about airports.  I don’t hate them, I just don’t necessarily like being in them a lot. They are good places to talk to people, everybody is going somewhere, and that’s intriguing. But more on this later….
Gotta go out and get my steez on!

Me and Madrid had words. Its had its fun and i've had mine, now it's time to get down to business. This city is deep, I've been in it's veins and circled it's heart but am not even close to piercing it. A city like this is dangerous for a person like me. So many extremes it's easy to become overwhelmed and lose your direction. Days aren't exactly days, just passages of time in which moments take place, movement happens, sometimes nothing. I'm trying to judge the pace but at this stage my beat is just a little off.

 

So far what's getting me through is bad coffee and luke warm cervezas, a distant connection to an increasingly useless language, and music. My soundtrack is consistent and ongoing as I drift through a parade of what started out as just people, but slowly become vast reflections of a dark light. I feel myself escaping to exist, I dont know if that makes sense. In time I will circle this projection and come back to being among the people. I hope. Espero.

The language, the language, the language. At times I feel gripped with anger, despair, powerless. Language is power, language is my tool. For over two decades ive shared a very special bond with language. Not just the English language, but language as a system of meaning. Its how we create and define our world. It is our world. Its one of the few things that I truly understand. How to use it, love it, how it defines me. And now. It is defeating me. I want so bad to be consumed by it but everything ive learnt to love, and know about language is the exact thing I feel preventing me at this point. Standing on a balcony with a reasonable amount of booze and weed and me I had one simple, somewhat innate moment. Dont think, just speak - no creo que solo hablan. It's hard to let go, but it's what is necessary to make the bond stronger. 

I miss hostel life. Its ostensibly a break from real life. I wish I could do it forever but I fear it would kill me. Im not even joking. It is a constant up. And my predisposition to excessive drinking coupled with my love of randomness in a constant cycle of ever changing relationships, would drive me to hedonistic death. Maybe that's not such a bad thing, but im not ready yet, I still got shit to do. 
I consider going and staying in one for a couple of nights, as a break. Meet some new people, swap some stories. Its's a different view of the city, you're not really in it, rather floating keeping your toes out of the grime and your eyes away that detracting, real life. And why not, that is hostel life.

I need to stop writing things in my dreams, its hard to remember them the next day. And whatever I might remember rarely makes an appropriate amount of sense. The usual series of events that follows my arrival in a foreign city, didn’t this time. Madrid looks familiar, smells familiar, feels familiar. But it’s not. It’s a new city. I find myself exercising a cautious uncertainty in my approach to this new life… for now. I guess it doesn’t feel quite real yet. This calls for a simple, well tested, and fail proof manoeuvre – find some Australians/Americans/Canadians and Irish… get freaky!!! That should replace some semblance of normality in my life.

Ive sorted out what I needed to. Found my school and found my apartment, and have the rest of the week free and easy, oh yeah! I love Madrid, I feel like I cant explain enough why right now, but that will come over time.

Its funny being surrounded by a range of foreign languages, they all start to blur together. Even English sounds strange. After a while you start to feel like you’re in a foreign film without subtitles, you kinda get a feel of whats  going on but have no idea what anyone is saying. Its easy to become complacent, and just block it all out, into a monotonous drone. I need to work on that, I think it would make the language difficult to learn. But theres plenty of time for that. 

I need a nap.

I welcome December with open arms and an eager, toothy smile. The year is so close to the end and I am thankful. It's been a horrible year, no fun, possibly my worst. A friend told me she thought it had been my best. I guess I can see that, I've achieved much, but I struggle to agree.
I'm close to something I've dreamed about for many ages. I try to imagine myself; nothing but a suitcase, a notepad, and a penchant for low down dirty bars, I've romanticized about this for a lifetime. And now is the perfect time to do it.
Step one - have a dream.
Step two - don't sit around dreaming about it.
It's best not to imagine what things might be like. How could you? It's such a vast lifestyle change.  Just live it as it happens

If you're considering getting shitfaced tonight and taking your car for a spin, stop for a moment and think, "do I want to apply for a working visa for another country sometime in the next ten years?" if the answer is yes, then for gods sake get out of the car. Drink driving is barrels of fun, believe me I know, but it's not worth it.
My application was finished, packed in the correct order and posted. Then I decided to go back and look at the email which mysteriously grew an extra paragraph outlining a plethora of extra information I am required to supply relating to a DUI offense from 9 years ago.
"shit", I whispered silently to myself. Then I let out a more aggressive, slightly louder, "fuck!" and proceeded to stare at the wall for about 18 minutes. A fairly productive waste of time, I knew what I needed to do.

A storm of just plain annoying crap ensued. Crap that needed to be fetched, copied, compiled, signed, certified. Phone calls, emails, a visit to the courts, the cop shop, "you need to be on level 3", "oh no that's moved to level 7", "wrong building".
Ahhh bureaucracy in action. I went to the police station to get an arrest report and was told to go online, download and fill out a specific form, take that to a building far far away, they would send the form to the police, who would gather the required information, send it back to the mysterious far away building, at which point it would be mailed back to me.
"But Immm, right here"' I said to the officer (not sarcastically at all), and had a screen closed in my face. I wondered when I'd stumbled into a parody of a detective noir film.
On top of all that they want a detailed narrative of the offense. Now apart from getting out of the car and saying to the policeman, "where do you want me to blow", it was almost 10 years ago, I was taking an heroic amount of LSD around that time, and I was plastered... how much more detailed can I be?
At this point I imagine applying for a visa to be a magical experience, unless of course you are a criminal.

I'd love to have an outdoorsy job. 
 

The digital age has arrived!! At least for me anyway. I am now a mobile online broadcasting facility for capturing and keeping all the wonderful moments I experience and share with people I dont yet know, and sharing with you, people I soughta know.
DSLR - a few years old but still cuts the mustard
High Def camcorder - just arrived and still in its box
Point and shoot cam - for all those lazy moments
Website/blog - concieved, created, but not yet live

And a laptop too, for all that other stuff. Now I just gotta figure out how to use all these things creatively and convincingly. Now dont get me wrong, I still am and always will be a dead set fan of the ol' pen and paper methodology, and will continue to use it. A piece of paper and a pen in your pocket is the next best thing to actually conciously saying to yourself, "I should remember that". But let's face it.... I lose shit and writing with a pencil takes longer and has no backspace button. If i'd managed to hold on to all the scribbles and notes I made over the last decade or so I may have started or finished that novel I keep telling myself I'm going to write.... one day.
Besides, the idea of physically maintaing a notebook, or scrapbook seems kind of impractical when I can store everything that I document on what I'm calling my 'Eat my dust' tour, online. My only fear then being, what happens if I lose the internet?

Down to 10 weeks until I flee. Unfortunately at this point there isnt a whole lot that can be done, just making lists. Still gotta finish off the year at work, deal with christmas and new years, leaving two and a half weeks of slap happy delirium to organise my world for speedy escape. No worries, get it done. My police clearance hasn't come through yet... hmmm.

I think I could sit here for
days just playing with the website editing tools without actually getting to
filling it in with information. I forsee this website going through alot of
changes in the first couple of months... sorry about that. As things progress
the information will start to supply, feed, and build off itself. An idea turns
into a project turns into an obsession. How fucking poetic.

It was an
impulsive decision, I know. But that’s typically how I roll, so I don’t think
many were surprised. The idea had been through many manifestations over the year
but now presented itself as a simple one; get a visa, book a ticket. Go!

Visa - pending
Flight - booked
Go - hang on I still got shit to
do



When I think about it the
process took around 3 seconds; decision made. At this point there is 12 weeks
until I flee, heaps of time. So now it falls to seeing the year through, brutal
bastard that it was, waiting on visa approval for Canada, and gettin’ shit done.
Boomshanka!!!