This continues on from my brief introduction to Poland, which actually turned into a bit of a history lesson, oops. I’d been invited to Poland for a weekend of excess: food, women, alcohol and video games. It would soon be apparent though that Polish food is a bit shit, and their women are veritable cesspits of disease and damnation.  At least the video games and alcohol were OK. I’ve scattered a few random photos of mine from Poland throughout this entry, don’t try to make sense of them — they’re completely unrelated, but pretty!

When I’d boarded the plane in England it had been sunny, warm, breezy. I’d been promised lovely weather — continential Europe, when it gets warm, gets really warm. I’d been promised a lot of things actually and the weather was going to be the first of many broken promises. The door to the plane opened with a hiss as the pressure dropped instantly. Snow. Frackin’ snow blew into the cabin and into our faces. We’d been promised sun and warmth! If we wanted precipitation, we’d have stayed in England.

Mike met me after I’d collected my bags. ‘I thought you’d sound more British.’

Seriously, do I really not sound British? 24 years — a quarter century, next week — of speaking English. The Queen’s English. And a Canadian, a fellow member of my Queen’s Commonwealth said I don’t sound British?! Not one to punch my host in the face — always better to do that on the way back to the airport, after they’ve kept a roof over your head — I let it lie. Britishness is in the heart anyway, right? In the crumpet-shaped heart…

We headed outside to his car, trudging through a few inches of sludgy grey snow. After slighting my accent, I made sure he carried my bag — it’s good to remind the colonials who still rules the Commonwealth roost. His car was a race-tuned BMW M3 (a really fast car). My face cracked into a grin. ‘I haven’t got around to putting winter tires on the car yet, Seb… so it might be quite a wild ride back to my place.’

‘We hadn’t anticipated quite so much snow…’ REALLY?

So we skidded and careened our way along the crappy Polish highways in an automotive example of Brownian motion. Mike’s car was pretty crappy too. The dash kept falling to pieces, and the rubber seals around the doors ‘needed to be fixed, but last time I sent it to the mechanic, they kept the car for 8 weeks without fixing it.’ Poland is not a highly functional country. It’s drab and grey. Driving through the slippery streets of Gdansk, we turned onto the road leading to Mike’s flat. Street after street of poorly-maintained concrete apartment blocks. They had been painted once, just after being built, back in the 60s — there were traces of pinks and greens and baby blues — but since then they’d just been left to dilapidate and wallow in their own crappiness. Gdansk was probably quite pretty once, but not today.

Fortunately, Gdansk belongs to the Tricity of Gdansk, Gdynia and Sopot — the latter two being both a lot more charming then Gdansk and not quite so… drab. Sopot is where we would spend most of our time: eating, drinking and carousing. Sopot is where we spent hundreds of pounds on sushi and saki, where we entertained the company of beautiful, chisel-cheeked Slavic beauties and where I threw up for only the third time in my life.

It started, as these things do, with an idea. In a group of guys, that idea isn’t usually very intelligent or sensible: ‘Let’s get naked and run around campus!’ or ‘Let’s inject our testicles with fish paste and dangle them in a hungry pool of piranhas!’ — men are not the most deep and meaningful creatures at the best of times, but when you get 2 or more of them trying to agree a course of action by consensus, there are only so many possible outcomes.

‘Let’s get DRUNK!!!’

When the English, Irish and French settlers headed over to North America, did all of the enthusiastic people go with? Put an American, Canadian and Brit in the same room and it’s hard to believe they all came from the same common genetic line.

‘Sure… let’s get drunk…!’ That was me, trying to echo Mike’s enthusiasm. The last time I’d got properly drunk was on my 20th birthday, at university, 3 years ago. That was also the last time I’d been sick, and I’d avoided alcohol abuse since.

As an aside, what gives with having to drink everything that’s bought and placed in front of you?

‘I’ve had at least half a litre of spirits and a bottle of wine… I’ve swilled and gargled 5 shots of Aftershock… I’m on my last legs. When you’re tall like me, you have a long way to fall if your legs give way… ‘ (Read the linked Aftershock Challenge — alcohol and the membranes in your cheeks/under tongue =  nasty)

‘But… I’ve just paid money for this drink!’

I knew that a night in Sopot would be the same deal, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. Apathetical drunkenness. Drunkenness Induced By Benevolent And Generous Host.

‘Can we at least get some food in our stomachs first? There was that nice sushi place…’ Forever the Jew, I can spot a good restaurant from well over 200 yards.

That nice sushi place turned out to be awesome. A tiny little exclusive restaurant with 15 stools placed in a circle around a central food preparation area. In the middle stood 3 proper Japanese sushi chefs — I have no idea what they were doing in Poland, so don’t ask. Perhaps some Poles had kidnapped their families, who knows. Each one served whoever was sitting in front of them — you pointed at an item on the menu, and they prepared it, right under your nose.

But, it gets better! There’s a moat of of water between you and the chefs, with little boats in it, each one carrying some kind of side-dish. I sat and watched in awe as the little boats made their way around the restaurant. You don’t want to know how much it cost for that single, appetite-whetting mouthwateringly delicious tiger king prawn that floated by on a little bamboo raft. Or the next one. And the next.  In fact, after I’d taken 4, the couple sitting to our right started to get a little angry when no prawns had made it past me for 10 minutes…

Anyway, this story is about when I got drunk, not how I spent way too much of my host’s money in a snobby sashimi sushi saloon. We finished up our food, polished off the large bottle of aged red wine and headed down to the club.

The club was… cosy. It was only about 20 feet across — 5 meters — but it was deep, and on 3 floors. The ground floor was just a bar, the middle floor had some heavier rock music and the top floor was the dance-like-a-spastic cheesy-euro-disco zone. It was April, off-season, but this place was obviously the most popular club in town: shoulder to shoulder, nut-to-butt, gropefestingly jam-packed — FULL. Really damn full. We shouldered our way through the busy ground floor, hoping to find more space upstairs and guess what? It had a spiral staircase.

I guess fire regulations don’t exist in Poland — or at least, they’re not enforced. A 3-storey club, with perhaps 1000 or more wild, passionate Poles, all ascending and descending a tiny, wrought-iron spiral staircase. One thousand drunk and angry Polish people (and even a few Mafioso-looking types that everyone made way for). Making my way down that staircase at the end of the night, drunk out of my mind, struggling to put one foot in front of another — not even sure which feet were mine — is not something I want to repeat… ever.

A drunken stumble across town (cobbles are really not the best friend of the woefully inebriated) and a 5 minute drive later (Mike wasn’t drunk, I swear…) we arrive at the flat, me considerably worse for wear than him. He’d been giving me his drinks, instead of drinking them himself. Bastard.

‘I think I’m going to be sick, Mike…’

He just grinned at me. The cretinous Canadian cockmongler just grinned at me. ‘The bathroom’s over there.’

If you’ve ever seen the toilet in student accommodation, you’ll know that they’re dirty enough to cultivate at least three bacterial conurbations.

‘I think you’re getting close to recreating the conditions required for the genesis of multi-cellular organisms, Mike. This is pretty primordial down here!’ My voice was muffled and slurred, what with my head being almost fully in the bowl of the toilet. [I wanted to work in a joke about being pissed out of my head here, but I couldn't quite make it fit...]

‘What?’ I’m obviously more intelligent than backward backwater Canadians, even when drunk.

‘Never mind, come and hold back my hair…’

Sushi really doesn’t taste great the second time around, even the posh stuff. Mike and I came out of the weekend worse for wear, but closer friends than before.

If only I could think of more words beginning with ‘P’. Four is pretty good as far as alliterated story names go, right? This one takes place a month or two after last week’s story and chronicles yet another disgusting story involving our disgusting house mate Phil. Read last week’s story first for the full effect, or you can’t be bothered: Phil is a sadomasochist, into odd sex games, oozes ’sex pest’ness and has a teenage Asian girlfriend that he probably bought in the Philippines. As always, if you want more stories of this kind, head over to Lilu’s blog.

Enjoy. No, really.

We were cleaning his room, my housemate and I. It was the end of the year and Phil had finally packed his bags and checked out of our shared student house. Being a sadomasochistic, selfish prick he had of course left a lot of mess in the room: an unmade bed, a floor covered in hair, some odd socks strewn about — the usual. It took a while but the room was finally detritus-free and dusted, ready for its new occupant — me! — all that remained was to do some vacuuming.

In hindsight, after the anal beads incident, I probably should’ve thought twice before shoving the end of the vacuum under the bed. The odd, musky, fishy smell that had wafted around the room should’ve set all kinds of alarms off.

Hwwnnnksplttttt-rrrrrrrrrrrrr

That’s the sound of an unhappy sucking device (trust me, I know these things). Quickly turning it off, lest I blow up the mighty suction beast, I ask my house mate to kindly go and yank the obstruction out of the nozzle.

‘It’s awfully dark in here…’ She’s poking around, trying to get a grip.

I wait patiently, wishing the machine had a ‘blow’ setting so I could just… shoot it out! (Wouldn’t that be neat?)

‘I think I got it! It’s… squishy…’ There’s some kind of thwnkwn-splat sound as she finally pulls it out, the tip of it held between her fingers, the body of the rubbery receptacle slapping against her bare stomach.

Gulping, I look at her stomach. ‘Don’t look down!’ She looks at me, tears welling up in her eyes, fear, uncertainty and doubt all intermingling. Eventually she caves and looks down, and screams.

In between her fingertips is the tip of a condom and sloshed across her naked midriff is its rotten, yellowing contents. Phil’s final farewell gift delivered in a way more perfect than he could ever imagine.

She screamed again and ran to wash herself, notes of sickness tinting her warbling vocals.

I called out to her in the bathroom: ‘The worst bit is, I know where that condom is from, and you’re not going to like it…’

Let’s go back four weeks…

I can only assume that they hadn’t anticipated on anyone returning home before 2am, the usual club closing time.

I was stumbling home from university, alone and semi-inebriated. I remember being confused at finding both the ground floor bedroom and kitchen lights on as I approached the house — it was 1am, a whole hour after midnight snack time. I unlocked the front door and stepped inside. Usually I would’ve sneaked upstairs cautious not to wake anyone that might be asleep. Instead, the fool that I am, I pushed the kitchen door open.

Whack!

They didn’t hear me as I tip-toed across the plastic floor and took a seat at the table.

WHACK! Ow, baby, harder…

I reached for the bottle of cheap red sitting on the table and poured myself a glass, my drunk eyes trying in vain to digest what was going on just a few feet away. Really, a nurse outfit, Phil? Latex?

WHACK! I know how you like it, big boy!

Looking up from the wine I finally decided it was unfair to let them continue. I was drunk, but I knew this was the kind of thing that would haunt both Phil and his girlfriend for decades — and inevitably: their children. Putting away my camera phone — what an evil, malevolent grin I had on my face — I called out to them.

‘Evening, Phil. Nice ass.’

His girlfriend stumbled, her downswing with the spiked paddle missing completely and hitting the kitchen sink. Turning around to look at me I could finally see the full extent of his child girlfriend’s plastic nurse outfit. If she had breasts, they would’ve hung out of the cut-away, plunging top. The skirt, the belt, left nothing to the imagination. My eyes followed down her short, knobbly, puppy fat-laden legs until I found a pair of black, buckled stilettos with very imposing, spiked heels.

I shook my head, trying to focus on Phil’s back and bottom. It was your usual, run-of-the-mill crotchless leather gimp suit. His buttocks were red raw, little bloody welts forming where the spikes on the paddle had repetitively hit the same spot and eventually broken his hairless skin.

But worst of all, hanging between his legs was his semi-limp penis still sheathed in a condom. And it wasn’t empty.

Back to the present…

My housemate rushes back into the bedroom and glares at me, her stomach and tank-top soaked through, her navel red from being scratched and scrubbed and purged of the disgustingly glutinous fluid.

Sometimes, she says,  it’s better to not tell the entire story.

Continued from yesterday.

She tried to lead me with a sweaty hand towards the village of tents. Not one to be led by a drunk – at least while sober — I tried to distance myself, walking behind her to the right. I had almost slowed down to a standstill while she quickened her pace, walking ahead. She must’ve noticed my apprehension, or more simply that my crotch and stomach were no longer within groping distance because she turned around. She smiled; more of a sneer truth be told. But she gave it her best effort.

She thrusts out a waving, stumpy limb. Why do I have to be so damn weak for short girls? “It’s just up here.”A tent, right in the middle of 500 other tents. We picked our way between illuminated tents and small, smoky fires. All about us girls and boys drank and smoked, already at or on their way to numb nirvana. We finally reach the tent. She bends over in front of me to unzip the nylon. The sound of the zipper’s plastic teeth being teased asunder seems unnaturally loud. For a brief moment I can think of nothing but sex. I look down at her ass; it looks good. Short legs and chubby ankles have never appeared so appealing. My hand is suddenly out of its pocket and swinging towards her ass. Thwack. Eep! She doesn’t turn around but instead wiggles her hips. I look to the sky and grin: at myself, and any gods that might be watching. But then I see it, the glassy, almost-obsidian ocean. The fjord looks beautiful. It must be photographed!

I grasp the camera that’s hanging around my neck, take a quick but photo and enjoy lingering glance of her ass — and flee. Not recklessly — tripping face-first into a camp fire or drunkard is never cool — but fast enough that I can hear her calling out for me, unable to place me amongst the crowd of youths.

Quickening my pace down the hill, out of tent shanty town and safely out of syphilis’ reach, I pull out my phone. Feeling a bit like Keanu Reeves I dial my friend on the boat: “Wizard! Get me out of here!”

“But Neo… don’t you want to see just how deep the rabbit hole goes?” I could hear there was more than a little mirth being had at my expense on the boat.

I should’ve asked for a ‘hard line’ or tried to pull off the red pill/blue pill dialogue over the phone.

“Can you pick me up or not…? I have a feeling that if I look behind me I’ll see her chasing… And I don’t think I’m drunk enough to deal with the aftermath of what I just did.”

Five minutes later I was on the boat and whisked to safety and taking photos.

I’m sure there’s a moral to this story…

I’m going to run out of Norway-related gasms before I actually get there, I can tell. My flights are now booked, though — I’ll be departing England on the 18th of March, and I’ll be in Norway until the 4th of April. I have just one month to prepare for a rather impromptu excursion. I don’t have the gear — the clothes, the snow boots! — nor do I have anything other than a bunch of couches to sleep on.

I’m staying with students, y’see. Institutionally-painted, box-room dwelling students. I graduated five years ago, but for some reason or another, most of my international jaunts since then have featured me staying at some kind of school or university. And I always end up getting horribly drunk — there’s something about being a student, at least in Europe, that implies drunken behaviour.

I presume Norway will be the same, just more expensive — a pint of beer (500ml) is $10 (£6). Much like the Faroe Islands, not much grows in Norway — some hardy grains, sheep, cattle, goats, pigs and potatoes. Oh, and fish of course — so basically, they import everything. A pizza costs $20, and they’re at the top of the Big Mac Index. I’m relying on the generosity of my hosts — surely, to them, a pizza is ‘just $20′, while to me it’s ‘TWENTY DOLLARS??!’.

Anyway… fjords. The main feature of any trip to Norway, other than the delicious fish, petroleum products and girls, is fjords. The definition is a little bit wishy-washy, depending on where in the Anglo-Norse world you happen to be, but generally it describes a narrow inlet from the sea. Technically, if you’re a geography nerd, fjords are U-shaped valleys formed by glaciers (mostly during the last ice age). As the glaciers drifted out into the sea, they carved valleys that have been eroded over thousands of years to form the fjords we see today. There are fjords all over the world, but Norway has much more than any other country — Scotland, Greenland, Canada and New Zealand have a few, but that’s about it. If you click the photo above, you can see the fjords that dot the west coast of Norway. If you think they look beautiful there… just wait and see what I bring back!

As for the actual photographing of them, I think I’m ready. I’ve cleaned my lenses, ordered a new camera and hired a Swedish gypsy to carry my bag and tripod — I’m ready. I don’t know which parts of Norway I’ll be seeing exactly — students aren’t so good at making plans for prospective visitors, at least not beyond ‘and now we drink!‘ — but I’ll see at least two of the big boys: Hardangerfjord and Trondheimsfjord. Trondheim is on its fjord, so it will be pretty hard to miss, while my host in Bergen has a house right on Hardangerfjord (which, believe it or not, derives its name from ‘hard anger’, probably referring to weather conditions). I don’t think we’ll make it to Sognefjord (the biggest one), because it’s right in between my two stops. Other than fjord-spotting, I’ve been threatened with long, healthy hikes in the mountains… and skiing. I haven’t worn skis since I was two years old. But how hard can it be…?

Anyhoo, I haven’t been sleeping very wellI didn’t manage to take any photos of my own this week (except the fun Valentine diptych with Abi), so I’m afraid you ‘only’ get a bunch of fjord photos that I found while scouring the Internet. Most of these fjord photos can be clicked for larger versions, which I really suggest you look at.

(Hardangerfjord, the one near Bergen)

(Sognefjord, which is a massive 200KM long — the second largest in the world, after Scoresby Sund in Greenland… which I have no intention of visiting… yet)

(The view from Trondheimsfjord)

(Maybe I should get a photo of me in the same place… would make a good new ‘explorer’ photo.)

(Beautiful Romsdalsfjord, but I don’t think I’ll get there on this trip… alas!)

I’m off to Norway in three days! Wheee!

I’ve now obtained a warm jacket (actually a snowboarding jacket — I’m so cool) and some very warm wool socks (again, snowboarding/skiing socks). Ostensibly, I will be walking — not a lot, but more than usual (i.e. more than none) — so the socks make a lot of sense. I actually need to get some new boots too — my current Timberland boots are 7 or 8 years old, but when a new pair cost something like £150 ($230), it’s hard to bite the bullet.

I have a scarf and hat (a deerstalker — still not sure about wearing it in public). The guys at the snowboarding shop said I should get a ‘buff’ — seriously, like a muff, but… buff. One of those neck warmer things. I don’t think it’ll be that cold or bitter in Norway though.

All that remains… is pants. I have none.

(Click for larger… though I can’t imagine why you’d want to…)

Both kinds of pant, British and American. I must buy some in the next couple of days (so that I have time to break them in). Do I go for the full, ‘long’ variety… or do I stick to boxer shorts? Do I wear denim and cotton (I don’t own jeans), or is there such thing as ‘warm’ trousers? I don’t want to wear plastic waterproof pants or trousers (for similar reasons). I have an old pair of wool trousers I think.

I mean, I have boxer shorts… not many, but some. A couple of pairs. And pants — trousers — I have… well, nominally two pairs, but I only really wear one.

This is the problem when I don’t go out much. It’s very easy to just whack on some underwear, slap on some trousers and a t-shirt, plonk myself down in front of my computers and while away 16 hours before reversing the process. Now that Norway is only a few days away and I’ll be spending three weeks in the presence of other human beings, I better get some more clothing for my lower half. (Incidentally, I recently bought an eight-pack of socks, they went through the wash once, and now only three out of sixteen socks remain — how lame is that?)

Anyway, other than that little dilemma, I’m all ready for Norway! I’ll be spending seven days in Bergen and eleven in Trondheim. There will be many fjords. And Nordic beauties — it’s about time a British emissary was sent to reclaim what was unlawfully stolen away by the Vikings! And… er… well, there isn’t a whole lot else to do in Norway. Their primary exports are fuels, machinery… and fish. They also love their woollen goods — so basically this is going to be like the Faroe Islands, but without the fuel or machinery. And without the dried sheep and whale.

I actually don’t know what we’re going to do, except walk and carouse. I’m staying with students in Trondheim, so I imagine that’ll be quite rowdy. But even then, I’m very curious to find out what people actually do in Norway. They’re not a standard ‘Western’ nation that deals mainly in services. There isn’t going to be a ‘downtown’ Trondheim. I guess it’s a more social lifestyle there? When 50% of the country’s income is from exporting fuel, life has to be pretty easy, surely?

The weather’s looking good, too. Bergen is a balmy 3C (37F) during the day, while Trondheim is a little bit nippier — freezing during the day, down to -5 (23F) or -6 at night. (Of course, if you figure wind chill into the equation it drops to about -15C, but who’s counting…)

As for the blog, I need to spend the next few days finishing preparations, and shifting obligations to other hapless victims/helpful friends. As before, I’ll put the blog into its ‘resting state’. It’s like cryogenic suspension, stasis, but not as cool. A new header will appear at the top of the blog to remind you where I am, and that for a month posts will be both sporadic^[1] and erratic. I’ll likely stick to early-morning updates, but it’ll depend on just how debauched and drunk I get. I needn’t remind you of what happened in Poland…

Oh, and if you want to buy some photos, I’ll try to get them onto Etsy in a timely fashion. I actually want to enable sales right here on this site, but that’ll have to wait until after Norway.

Bon voyage, or as they say in Norwegian: god reise — or, if the going gets really tough, luftputefartøyet mitt er fullt av ål!

* * *

1. Did you know that ’sporadic’ comes from the same Greek root as ’spores’? As in, scattered far and wide.

Still here! Not moved to Norway, don’t worry! The radio silence wasn’t intentional, or intended to make you think I’d stayed in Norway — I’ve simply been tired. Busy and tired. I’m trying to sort through hundreds of photos, while at the same time re-shouldering the burden of my writing and gaming obligations. I don’t know whether I’m tired through lack of sleep (I don’t think I’ve caught up after the last few days in Norway), or if it’s something else entirely. I like to think my time in Norway was recuperative, so… maybe it’s just a change in diet? Or something?

I even have bags under my eyes…

Maybe this is how old age sneaks up on you.

Almost 26!!

Anyway, here are a few photos — I’ll try to get some more up tomorrow. Don’t forget, with Norway out of the way, I can now focus on my trip to Asia! I had originally planned to fly into Thailand in August or September, but it’s really rainy around then. I could push the entire trip back to October through January, but that leaves me with not much to do in England over the summer… unless I drive around or something… hmm…

(This photo and the one before are both 50mm landscapes! Go go!)

(It’s kinda like Venice but… grey)

(OK, it’s not the most stunning landscape, but I still like it — this is on the outskirts of Trondheim)

(Because everyone likes photos of dogs… especially big, sleepy, Newfoundland paws…)

There are some more photos of the dog, some drunk gamers and one or two pretty landscapes on Flickr!