Luxembourg, Europe

I was going through pictures today and I realized that I don't have any pictures of Luxembourg. Not one. I went through the pictures twice and... well, I guess I might be lying. I have a picture which may be of Luxembourg. It's in the right set of photos - right between Germany and Belgium. It's taken from a train, and it shows a blurry hill streaked with rain. It's not a good picture.

I actually spent a significant period of time in Luxembourg, though, that's the thing that's bugging me. I mean, we got in on a Thursday and didn't leave until... Sunday night? The details are a little foggy to me. Thinking back, I'm pretty sure we arrived in Brussels early on a Monday, so we must have only left the Lux on Sunday night.

Ah, Luxembourg. It's quite the place, really. Filled with, um, stuff. And people. There are lots of people. And things to do. Oh yes, filled with culture is old Luxembourg. Nary a moment goes by that's not packed with excitement.

*sigh*

Okay, perhaps I'm being a bit unfair here. I mean, I'm pretty sure that I had a good time in Luxembourg. I think I met every single person that lives in the place, and half of them bought me a drink at the local bar. After the pub closed, the bunch of us, me and Luxembourg, we walked over to the German border. While we were there, we kept standing with one foot on either side of the border. "Look," Luxembourg would say, "I'm in Germany. Now I'm not! Now I am!" We all had a laugh and then we walked over to the French border and peed on France.

Nobody likes France.

I was there, though, for something like three and a half days. Why can't I remember more? I remember it being kind of blah. It was nice, I think. It certainly wasn't terribly un-nice - that would stick in my memory. It was fairly expensive - the Euros dribbled out of my pocket at slightly more than the usual rate. I think. It's hard to say.

One day, I'm pretty sure, I rented or borrowed a car (again - the details are foggy) and decided to drive round the entire country. After that was done, we stopped for breakfast and had a nice solid meal of sausage and possibly other things that may or may not have been sausage.

Overall, my experience with Luxembourg is that it's this tiny little place. It's no bigger than I'd say, PEI. Have you been to PEI? Do you remember that? Exciting, eh?

I'm not sure why I had to post this - I think it's the sheer unfortunateness of having been to a country and not being able to remember anything about it other than the fact that it's unmemorable. So please, I ask of you, go to Luxembourg. Tell me what it's like. Let me know what I didn't miss and can't recall.

I'm sure you'll have a blast. I think I may have.

Zimbabwe, Africa

Every continent has a something - some sort of feeling or... hard to describe sort of thing that describes it. Europe - culture. North America - money. Australia - populated by criminals. South America - fantastic bottoms.

Africa's got something primal and dark. It's got power. Africa's where it all started for us humans, and there's something there that kind of feels like home, deep down underneath it all. Like... this is where we belong.



Victoria Falls is a place like no other. It doesn't have the sheer volume of Niagara, or the incredible height of Angel Falls, but it has a majesty of it's own that is a mix of the two. The water seems to meander down the rock face in a way that is less urgent than other waterfalls, but somehow more inevitable. I find myself making little or no sense in trying to describe the place, because I end up speaking in contradictions.

You should go.

So, we stand there, watching Victoria Falls fall, in awe at the beautiful rainbow, generally just enjoying the day, when an African man accosts us. He's about 5'3", wearing little besides a loincloth, and is decidedly out of place (that's not the general apparel of the inhabitants of that part of Zimbabwe). He's maybe 30, maybe 50 (hard to tell) and he's remarkably fit. He places himself about a foot away from me (well within my personal space) and just stands there.

I've learned, in my travels, to take things with a grain of salt, so I decide to wait him out.

It turns out that this is the right thing to do. After a couple of minutes, he grins, showing us some exceptionally bright white teeth. "Jambo, mzungu!" he began. "Today, my friend, you almost die. Be very careful and you'll be fine." Then he hands me a Zippo and a newspaper, tips me a wink, and walks a way.

We make very little of it, being used to such strangeness in our travels. The zippo made it's way into my right jeans pocket, and the newspaper got tucked in my backpack and off we went, driving west. We'd heard about a park that had lots of wild animals that we want to see.

Driving in Africa is quite the experience. There are roads, but they're really more of a suggestion than anything else. The jeep that we'd bought upon arrival in Africa was an absolute joy to drive, so we tended to move at quite the pace, just off of the road. Let us just say that a good portion of our three hour drive was not spent with the wheels in direct contact with the ground. That's what travel is for.

So, we were making quite the ruckus when we happened upon a herd of rhinos.

The thing about wild animals is you never know how they're going to react in any given situation. We weren't being quiet, and they were hidden by a little hill - we barelled over the hill almost smack dab into the youngest of the herd. This immediately got us off to a bad start. Within 30 seconds, three rhinos were chasing us, or so we thought.

So, we figure, what's the problem? We're in a vehicle, we can just outrun them, right? But here's the thing; rhinos are fucking fast. Like, scary fast. Like, fucking train barrelling down on you sort of fast, and when you're not on a road, you can't necessarily drive at speed. We were a good half mile from the road, where we would have easily been able to outdistance them, but we could only go about 25 mile an hour. And, well, did I mention three rhinos? Holy shit.

So we drive, and we're zigging and we're zagging, and then we realize something. The rhinos are actually herding us away from the road. They're getting between us and the road, forcing us from safety. I'm not sure if this was a fluke, or if they were just eerily smart rhinos, and I'm not precisely sure what they were going to do once they had fulfilled their obviously murderous urges upon our bodies (my guess was "eat us" but I'm told that rhinos aren't actually carnivores. Let me tell you, they looking real fucking carnivorous when they're trying to kill you).

The driving continues, but it's getting a little more frantic; sharp turns here and there, trying to fool the rhinos, but they're having none of it. They're all up ons the tricks that we try to pull and I'm becoming more and more sure with every second that we're goin to die.

Then I remember the guy from the falls.

I remember shouting at my girlfriend to take the wheel, and I reached back into the back to get the newspaper. I pulled it out and grabbed the zippo from my pocket. After a few attempts, I managed to light the friggin' thing on fire, then directed my girlfriend to steer towards one of the many bushes surrounding us, preferably one not near any other bushes. We got right up close to a bush, and I made a one in a million toss - I managed to throw a burning newspaper out of a jeep travelling at 20 miles per hour, onto a small, dry bush, square on. Thank God for the years I spent in bars throwing darts and playing pool.

The rest, of course, is pretty easy to figure out. The bush lit on fire, the rhinos instinctively went to put it out, and we took the opportunity to scootch around behind them and get back to the road. Then we opened the jeep right up and put some distance between us and them.

This is how the Simpsons, and a little African guy, saved my life.



The rest of the trip was mostly uneventful. The other rhinos were less homicidal (and very cute). Upon our return to Victoria Falls (that's where we were staying) we ended up running into the little African guy again. He tipped me a wink and shot me a wave and then walked away before I could thank him.

There are more things...

The Arctic Tundra, Canada

First off, I want you to imagine a picture of just snow, with a white sky. That's what all my pictures from the deeply, truely north look like. Of course, I might just be saying that because when I went north I had only the most basic grasp of photography and my SLR was fairly low quality... and I don't want to scan the pictures. What I'm saying is: I don't have a photo to accompany this story.

So, imagine snow. Lots of it. Only, it's not normal snow, the kind that you see in winters all over the place in the world. It isn't happyfunsnow, the wet kind that you can make balls and forts and angels out of, or the fluffy snow that boarders love for skiing downhill. It isn't the disgusting wet slush that comes with lousy smarch weather, when the snow is part frozen water, part dirt and all pain in the ass. It isn't the light dusting snow that happily alights on Christmas trees, bringing joy and happiness to all the world.

Oh no. This snow is different.

This snow is evil, old and twisted.

Try to think about this for a moment, if you can. Some of the snow, this simple piece of tiny little ice, this thing made up of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen (the oxygen is where the evil comes from), some of this snow has been there since before people. Not just the people who were alive today, but all people, everywhere. It's been there so long, that it may as well have always been there. It is ancient, hungry, dark and twisted. It's well nigh immortal, except for where you tred and kill it. It has about as much in common with the fat, lazy, transient snowflakes of the south as men have with gods. In fact, these are the snowflake gods - endless and eternal and so far removed from your average snowflake that they are as mythic and strange as... well, gods.

Okay, got that? That's what the snow is like.

Now picture the sky. Normally, the sky is blue, but often includes warm reds, bright white fluffy clouds, etc. At night, it's black, with those pinholes of light that are the stars. The sun and moon, ever popular denizens of the sky, are huge globes that hang warmly in the night.

Not so up north. The moon is an interloper that does not belong, but when she does appear, she's cold and distant. The sun is like a constant burning eye in the sky (no... really. It is), looking down all the fucking time. It doesn't go away. The sky itself is a steel grey, forbidding, terrible, frightening. The place is like death.

And that's just my introduction...

So we're up north and we're trekking across the tundra (note: I'm not sure if we were techinically in the tundra anymore. I mean, where does tundra end and just fucking snow everywhere begin? It's a fine line and I don't know. I think I'll refer to it as "JFSE" from now on) and it's just the two of us, me and the girlfriend. I'm not sure what possessed us to do this - we're adventure freaks, I guess. I'm carrying enough dry food in my pack for two months (I'm built like a cross between a brick shithouse and a bull elephant) and probably enough equipment to create a small house (which turned out to be fortuitous), despite the fact that we were going to be away from our camp for a period of about 36 hours. TG had decided that while we were "out backcountry" we should really experience the North.

George, the Innu in charge of outfitting people, told us that if we got cold, we could just radio for help and he'd come get us. I don't know what coming to get us would accomplish, though; it had been ass-chappingly cold the entire two weeks we'd been in camp. The way I figured it, we'd be just as well off wherever we were. George laughed and told us that was probably true, then continued packing for us. At one point he looked at me and asked me how much I could carry comfortably. I'm convinced that he weighed the packs and added 20 pounds to what I quoted him.

Regardless, off we set into the pitiless, evil snow.

We walked for a while through the white, and then we walked some more. After that it was a bit more walking, and then, just to change it up, we walked. I'll spare you the real details. No wait, I've lied - these are as many details as exist. There wasn't really any conversation, what with me carrying nine thousand tons of stuff and TG doing the navigating. To give her full credit, she tried really hard with the navigating. Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself.

So, day gave way to, uh, day. The sun didn't really move, it just hovered there. We would have applied sunscreen if we had had any exposed flesh. As it was, I'm quite thankful for my snow goggles that are completely UV resistant. They're awesome. We walked for quite a while.

Now, if you're going to head north, take my advice and purchase 3 top of the line things.

First thing: A watch. It's hard to figure out what time it is by looking at the sun at the best of times, but at least you get general ideas. Like, when you're at work and the sun goes down, even though it's the middle of summer - you know that's not good. You realize that you've overstayed. Or when you're supposed to catch a flight at 5 in the morning, and it's sunny outside when you wake up - that's bad. You don't have to look at a timepiece to get an idea of what the time is. That's not really how it works in the north. That time piece tells you when to go to sleep, when to eat, how far you've walked, what you're doing... it's everything. Buy something that's digital and not clockwork, and make sure it's resistant (to everything).

Second thing: A compass. Buy a compass that costs at least a hundred bucks. Don't take the $5 compass that you knicked off your brother from when he was a boy scout.

Third thing: A flare gun.

So, we walked and then we stopped because it was time to stop. The watch said so. It had to be true. We stopped, and I put the pack down and we made a fire (okay, we lit a Coleman. Same dif), and she brought out the map and showed us where we were. She'd marked it off in red. It was cute.

We decided to make an igloo, eat, have sex and then go to sleep.

George was a marvelous man, and one of the things that he'd managed to teach us (although we were not good at it) was to make an igloo. It's not really all that hard, but there is a methodology to it. Mostly, the skill is in molding the evil snow to your will using a very large knife. The snow, as I've mentioned, isn't like snow here. It's more like flaky ice. You can cut out big pieces of it from the, for want of a better word, ground and then use that to your advantage. The other trick is to dig a hole and build your igloo over that. It gives you more room. You don't want it too big, though, or you won't get as warm.

So TG dug a whole and I started carving up blocks of ice. It was a good system, since she's a perfectionist and would try to get the blocks to be perfectly even (the hole that she dug? perfectly round. She used a peg and rope to make it so. I'm not joking). We ended up with a structure that was 7 parts snowfort, 2 parts igloo, and one part sex palace.

You remember how, when you were a kid, you would see nature shows, and those shows would say how igloos are actually warm, and that you can live in an igloo in comfort? That's bullshit. I mean, think about it. An igloo is built out of ice. What temperature is ice? That's right, it's fucking frozen What happens to ice if it becomes unfrozen? Oh yes! It melts! What do we call a melted igloo? A puddle. Igloos aren't warm; they're warmer than being just outside an igloo.

Thus, the sexxx palace part of the igloo didn't involve a lot of dishabille; it was mostly touchy feely over the clothes, with brief exposures of naughty bits and lots of nose rubbing (it's cliche, but it's also warming). All in all, it's something you should try at least once. Although, I don't think you need to go as far north as we did to enjoy the experience. Just go outside in the winter and make a snowfort. It's definitely an experience.

So, we finished, ate, slept, woke, made love again, donned our packs, and started walking again.

Now, this part will be hard to believe. I claim temporary insanity from all the sex and cold. We did not, and I'll repeat that, not walk straight back over our tracks. They were pretty easy to see, (although mostly gone, there was still a line, because there was much less wind than normal) and it was decided that we would walk back a different route to see more of the area.

I did talk about the bleakness and the lack of things to see at some point, I think. Yes? I'll tell you what we saw going this other direction. Snow. A fucking ton of it.

So we walked, and we saw snow, and altogether, I have to admit that it was kind of fun. Great fun, really, until an unknown time later (minutes? days? a month? Who know, because the sun never moves!) TG stopped and looked at the map in a puzzled fashion. She looked around, then at her compass, then at her map. Then she looked puzzled again, and said those six little words that you never, ever, EVER want to hear your navigator say.

"I think I made a mistake."

I made a noncomittal grunt, and shrugged out of my pack. I sat and told her to come over to me. She brought me the map and I had a look. She had plotted the second half of our route in blue. According to her, we had arrived at the camp. I looked around.

Um. How 'bout fucking no?

Yeah, we weren't at camp. I asked her if she was sure. She replied that, yes, she was fucking sure, and said that they must have moved. I asked if her compass was working. She asked if my brain was working. Three sentences and we'd gone from lovey-dovey sweethearts to lost explorers on the brink of madness, willing to eat one of our own if it meant we got out alive. Okay, that's a bit melodramatic; we were just pissed off.

I asked her to hand me the compass. She gave it to me, looking disgusted.

The compass was pointing directly to my left. That meant I was facing east-ish. I turned 90 degrees to face south.

The compass continued to point to the left.

I turned in a circle. At every point, the compass pointed to the left.

I showed TG this phenomenon. She told me that it certainly hadn't been doing that when she was using it.

I nodded, went to my pack, and got out the radio and the flare gun.

It took George about an hour to get to us and during that time no words passed between us. We were a good 10 km from the place that TG thought we were.

The remaining three days before our prop plane arrive to take us out were spent in an ice that was metaphorical as well as physical. TG was ever so pissed, and I guess I walked around with a big grin on my face... until George asked me why I hadn't noticed where we were heading based on the sun's position. He also said that my igloo looked like it had had a stroke.



When it came time for the next trip, we went to Cuba. You know what Cuba has? Absolutely fucking zero snow. It's bloody brilliant.