Читать книгу 360 Degrees Longitude - John Higham - Страница 16

August 2–August 19

Poland/Sweden

Dad. How does it feel to be half of 90?” Katrina asked, as we clambered onto the train. “I think I see a new gray hair.”

“It is only because of you, dear.”

My birthday meant an extra helping of good-natured grief from my family. September was next. “I ordered a cheeseburger, no mayo,” she quipped.

“Oh yeah, thanks for sewing on my button.” My “Bill’s Burger Barn” shirt had already lost more than one button. “You must love me.”

“I do. I’ll love you more if you let me burn that shirt.”

When we found our compartment someone was already in it. We made our presence known by bursting in and shattering the solitude. Jordan spread out paper and pencils for his newfound love—making his own comic books. Katrina propped her cast up on the bench across from her and started reading. It’s remarkable how much noise two kids can generate when pursuing “quiet” activities.

Five people in a compartment meant for four was a tight squeeze. Our neighbor sat quietly for a while, but I soon noticed him sniffing the air and looking puzzled, and then he got up and left. I didn’t feel too bad. We had the compartment reserved, but for all I knew, so did he.

“Katrina, you really should put a sock on that foot,” September said. “You know why that person just left, don’t you?”

Wounded, Katrina replied, “Well, I can’t actually wash under my cast, can I?”

“No, you can’t,” I said, “but you can save the rest of us a lot of grief if you would just seal up the offending fume factory by putting a sock on it.”

After three months on the road, we thought we were a well traveled, “been there and done that” family, but nothing could prepare us for the Hostel Baltic Ocean in the Polish port city of Gdansk.

After we clambered off the train we phoned every single hostel in our guidebook and many, many more, only to find that every bed was taken. The whole of Europe, which had more or less been following us around since we’d arrived in Paris, was in Gdansk for a festival. The Hostel Baltyk, as it is formally known, was not listed in our guidebook, but when we found that it had four beds available we made reservations, sight unseen.

We had pushed the budget travel envelope a little too far.

Hostels can come in a wide variety of flavors. Of course, a hostel is not a hotel, where you obtain a room in exchange for cash. At a hostel, you get a bed in a room and a bathroom down the hall. A good hostel will also have cooking facilities, and a great hostel will have a coin-operated laundry.

Most hostels are well aware that people do not really like to share a room with others they do not know. Gone are the days when a hostel was two large dorm-style rooms—one for the men and one for the women. Hostels nowadays are a collection of smaller rooms where families or friends traveling together can all have a room to themselves. We never had to share our room.

That is, until we stayed at the Hostel Baltic Ocean. My first impression of the hostel was that the insides hadn’t seen a broom since the Russians liberated Gdansk from the fleeing Nazis. My second impression was of the Blues Brothers scene were Elwood brings Jake home to his apartment above the train station, and Jake asks “How often does the train go by?” to which Elwood answers, “So often, you don’t even notice.”

As the staff was showing us our room, I noted seven beds. The woman helping us must have read my mind. “You probably will not have to share your room.” The word “probably” rattled around in my head as I trundled off to the shower.

“I have a surprise for you,” September said when I returned 20 minutes later. “What Ms. Hostel-Person failed to mention when she showed us our room was what was behind Door Numbers One and Two.” September pointed to two innocent-looking doors in our room. I was drying myself off just as she was ready divulge her secret, when in bounced a sweet young thing through Door Number One. “Surprise!” September said, “behind these doors are more rooms. And the only path to those rooms is through our room.”

I smiled thoughtfully at the young lady as she sped through our room, diverting her eyes and trying not to giggle.

The following night we were able to upgrade so we were no longer in the corridor room; we were in the room behind Door Number One.

Our old room—the corridor room—was now inhabited by seven very large and very hairy Polish men with booming laughs, affectionately known to us as the Bathroom Joke Septuplet. Not that we could tell what jokes they were really telling, but the hand gestures for bathroom jokes appear universal.

We now had the pleasure of bursting in on the Bathroom Joke Septuplet every time we left or returned to our room. These were clearly fun-loving guys who were very friendly, totally unrefined, and all the happier for it. They did not seem to be fazed in the least by the fact that the rest of the guests used their room as a hallway. Every time we passed through they were all sprawled across their beds in various stages of undress and joke-telling. During every transition through the room we would be reminded of just how hairy and large they were. And that they wore blue boxer shorts. With red stripes. Not all of them, of course. Others preferred polka dots.

Quietly opening the door to the corridor room the following morning, I found the Bathroom Joke Septuplet had completely vanished! Not a single trace of them was left, save for a single pair of blue-and-white polka-dotted briefs on the floor, and the blue striped boxer shorts hanging from the curtains. Gratefully, there are some questions in life we will never know the answers to.

We made up a song to commemorate our encounter, to the tune of “Hotel California”:

We’re living it up at the Hostel Baltic Ocean

What a big disgrace

Such a scary face …

www.360degreeslongitude.com/concept3d/360degreeslongitude.kmz

Naked aggression encased in 4,000 pounds of steel. And you thought Boston had bad drivers.

Sweden was not on our radar screen when we left Zermatt; our intention had been to stay in Eastern Europe until we could resume cycling and camping. Yet around the time I was putting foot powder on my cornflakes, September simply announced that we were going to Sweden. “It’ll be easier to find an English-speaking doctor for Katrina’s follow-up exam,” she noted. I couldn’t argue that, as we had already speculated that everyone in Scandinavia speaks excellent English. Lutefisk had to be better than cornflakes mixed with Dr. Scholl’s, so it was arranged.

www.360degreeslongitude.com/concept3d/360degreeslongitude.kmz

Got cabin? September has this way of always getting what she wants. She missed a career opportunity in politics, sales or as a con artist. Use Google Earth and the 360 Degrees Longitude layer to find at least one reason I would marry my wife all over again.

We took a ferry from Gdansk to Gotland Island, Sweden, situated in the Baltic Sea 110 miles south of Stockholm. Gotland, literally “God’s Land,” was a Viking stronghold for centuries and the main city of Visby is now considered one of the best-preserved medieval cities in Scandinavia. Visby was hosting a medieval festival and on the Internet, September had found a cabin for us. The cabin gave us something we hadn’t had since we left Silicon Valley—a mailing address.

When we arrived we found the cabin was surrounded by forest, situated on a cliff overlooking the bay that surrounds the town of Visby. When we first walked inside we took a look at the dining room table and found a large package waiting for us—our August shipment of books! It cost about three times the value of the contents of the package to have it FedEx-ed from the United States to Sweden, but it arrived on time. Our July shipment of books was still at the mercy of the U.S. Post Office.

Not only was our package of books waiting for us, but also friends had sent Katrina and Jordan a care package. It was better than Christmas. “COOL!” Jordan shouted, climbing the furniture and jumping from the kitchen table to the couch, his way of coping with the flood of emotions that came with the new Essential Fantastic Four