I am an American expat living in Germany. It's a far away land on the other side of the ocean. It's interesting and often weird here. If you read this and want to comment then email me at nate(the at symbol)chillmost.com. If you find any spelling or grammar mistakes, you can keep them.
NYC: It was a blast. I'm really grateful to my friend Bob for letting us stay at his place on the Lower East Side. It is so much better to be able to hang out with locals and check out their haunts rather than hang with tourists and watch them get drunk and spill hot-wing sauce on their midwest teddy-bear sweatshirts. It was especially good for Jens because he got to relax and hang out in NYC and just check it out at his own pace.
We pretty much just walked around and took pictures during the day and went out to bars at night.
My friend Bob is the type of guy that like to sarcastically suggest that you do stupid things that would have dire consequences. For example he'd say something like "Hey, why don't you go over there and slap that cop in the face. It'll be alright. He won't do anything." These comments can usually just be ignored.
In one of the bars we were in there was a large rambunctious dog barking and howling trying get its owner's attention. Bob said, "Dude, you should go kick that dog. It's just playing. It'll be alright. He won't do anything." To which I replied, "Shut up dick, drink your beer."
First let me say that this bar, 151 I think it was called, was very dark. A few moments later I got up to go to the toilet and on the way I kicked the dog right in the head. He was laying on the floor in the dark. The beast instantly latched its jaw to my foot and I could feel its teeth through my shoe as I yelled, more out of fright than pain. He let go and I went to the bathroom. When I came back Bob was very proud of himself for pulling the Jedi mind-trick on me.
A few minutes later while he was outside using his phone, I went to the toilet again and, remembering what had just happened, started to slow down in case of a dog laying in wait. Too late. This time I kicked it in the ass and the same thing happened all over again. Bob was very disappointed that he missed the second attack.
Back in reality, Germany, work with a thud.
Upon leaving Knoxville we drove through Virginia on up to Washington DC. We got to the hostel, droppped off our stuff and proceeded to find the area with young people and pubs. We were having some trouble finding our way so I asked two hip looking dudes where the party was at.
"I don't know. We are from Germany."
Hey so are we, sort of. So that is how we met Paul and André. They were also doing a road trip of the East coast but going north to south instead of the other way around like us. They were just as lost and clueless as we were so we all got along just fine. We warned each other about what to expect on the others respective forthcoming leg of the journey; Cops in Georgia and Florida, Cops in Jersey and New York, Girls in NYC, Girls in Miami.
We all got pretty toasty and I remember a bar with a small white guy on piano singing Jim Croce songs with a voice like Louis Armstrong. On the way home I remember Jens yelling obscene things in German trying to see if it gets anyone's attention. It didn't. Maybe he was just yelling them for the sake of being able to and not have anyone understand. That is probably a great feeling: In public in front of God and everybody telling the world just exactly what you feel about it and not worrying about people freaking out about what you said. So public, yet so private.
The next day it pissed down rain so we went to see a few things and took some pictures. Saw the Washington Monument, The White House and the Vietnam Memorial. Even though that memorial is out in the park is is very private. It is hard to find unless you were looking for it. It is just this huge swath of black marble cut into a shallow hillside. There are a lot of names on the Vietnam Memorial. Too many. I was born the year after the last troops were pulled out so I missed the whole era and everything that was going on back then. I just can't see what the whole thing was about. I can't see what, if anything, was accomplished. Sad.
From DC we drove on to Stamford, CT bringing the road trip part of the journey to an end. We spend the next few days in Stamford and then on monday the 5th went in to the city to stay with my friend Bob for 3 days.
More about the Stamford/NYC adventures coming soon.
