Struggle to Athens
5.27
Thursday
Woke up, packed and got ready to leave. Did a still shoot with JHK for RLX and took off down the street for my bus to Madrid. Feeling a bit more savvy about the buses, I had the right change and approached with my gameface on. It worked. No hassle. Once back in Madrid I took a cab to the airport. Took a jet to Brussels, got out and things went South. I tried a phone. Didn’t seem to want to work. Tried another one, dropped in about 3€ in change, got through to Ken (to get help with renting a car) and the connection was terrible. Hung up and tried a 3rd phone then a 4th. Same deal. I figured I didn’t need any help and headed to the rental desk. Best deal I got was 80€ per day. Not so great. I got out a map and figured if I could make it to Liege I could certainly get a rental car cheaper and continue on to Houffaleze from there. Probably would have worked well had I not got on the wrong train. Headed to - well, I broke down and asked the 3rd grade school teacher who was busy rangling unruly 3rd graders. Once they (teacher and kids) heard me speak english, they could not ask enough questions. Most of them, “Do you speak english?!?” Took me a minute to figure out that’s all the kids knew. Silly me kept answering, “Yes, i do!” all happy that I think I’m surrounded by english-speaking people. Not. I got clued into being on the train headed to Luxemburg. Fine. It was a nice ride. I hopped off in Libramont. Ah, a payphone! Funny, after dropping about 3€ I got through to Ken but the connection was terrible. Plus there was a mad delay so as soon as I’d ask a question, hear nothing and start talking again, Ken would answer. Waste of time. I hung up. How can an entire country have phones that suck? Can’t be. I headed across the street to a bar. All bars have phones that work. There was a motely crew smoking at the far end and the bartender drew and extra long drag off his cigarette before asking me something in a language I’ve never heard. I nodded, smiled and asked for a “Telephono, por favor”. Well dummy, you’re not in Spain anymore. The guys at the bar glared at me. I could feel years of my life vaporzing as my lungs did their best to find oxygen amidst the smoke. The bartender shoved a small, old, beat-up contraption of a phone in front of me. He mumbled something, then placed a stack of odd coins there. I thanked him, gagged on the smoke and picked up the phone. I put an odd coin from the stack in the slot and the bartender yelled at me, swiped the phone out of my hands and hung it up. Hmmm. Seems I offended him somehow. I’m getting nervous now. I look at him, he mumbles the exact mumble he mumbled a minute ago. I give him the same dumb smile and start again. And whoosh - there goes the phone out of my hands again. It’s times like this you just want to crying. That seemed like it would only serve to get my @ss kicked so I held back the tears. I had my little number cheat-sheet on the bar so he points at that. Oh, I got it. I’m supposed to DIAL first, then put the odd coin in the phone. Ok. That was not such a victory but a step in the right direction. Well I got to the bottom of his little stack of coins before I got a call to go through (all phones here must simply not work) so instead of him and all bar patrons seeing that I cannot operate a phone successfully anywhere in Belgium, I put the handset to my head and started talking. “Dude! Whazzzup? Me? I’m kickin’ it here in Belgium. Yea, it’s soooo cool! Ok, I really have to go now, I feel some lung cancer coming on. Keep it real. Peace-out.” I nodded to the crew upon leaving. Feeling like a dork.
I got on a bus in front of the bar that was headed to Bastogne. I hoped the phones would work better there. I arrived to a beautiful little town on top of a hill in the countryside as the sun went down. My memory isn’t too keen but I knew the name sounded familiar. Ah, Battle of the Bulge. Here I was, finally in a place where Americans were welcomed. At least they were 50 years ago. No triumphant march down mainstreet, just a down-trodden American on his last nerve dying for a phone that worked. I felt like Neo in The Matrix trying to get a call out of this Twilight Zone. I also needed some food and a beer. Wine. Or anything that would take the pain of lugging my luggage over half of Europe go away. Found a hotel, checked in. Found a restaurant. Ate. Drank a small bottle of decent red. Went back to my room. I noticed a phone on the table there. I dialed my calling card number and it went through. Kenny answered - VICTORY!!! I talked to him for 15 minutes of blissful clarity w/o delays or bartenders mumbling at me. Then there was a knock on the door. Odd. No one know’s I’m here. Who could it be? I open the door to find some lady going off in French about needing to use the phone. She had one in her hand that she kept waving at me. Cie vu ple. Cie vu ple. Telephoné. Like it’s MY fault the cheesy hotel I’m in didn’t think to install more than ONE DAMN PHONE LINE!?! I tell her to “Back off, I’ll be done in a minute! Esta Bien? Tre Bien? OK!?” And I close the door abruptly. So I bid Kenny adieu and hung up.
Well, when I went to the restaurant downstairs to make good on my continental breakfast this morning, guess who my waitress was? Yea. Nice.
G’nite.
