David Goes a-Viking

After spending eight and a half months in the wilderness of Austria, it was high time for me to begin the strenuous odyssey back into civilization. I planned a trip that would take me from Klagenfurt to Vienna, whereupon I would fly into Oslo, go by train into Stockholm, and then go to Copenhagen. Thence, I planned to go experience the wonders of Scotland for nine nights, and then I would have four nights in Reykjavik, Iceland, before catching a flight I found for all of $212 to JFK and be back in America's loving embrace. 

Right there, baby.

Before my three-and-a-half week globetrotting expedition could begin, however, I needed to pack up everything I had lived with for the past 8 and a half months and de-register from Klagenfurt. I divided up my various belongings between things I could afford to mail home, things I needed to take into the carry-on bag that I would essentially be living out of on my trip, and the rest, which would go into my giant checked suitcase. I had to send my school bag in the box home because the budget airlines I would be flying with only allow one carry-on item. Because I would need the passport I kept in my school bag's front pocket all year to de-register with the authorities, I had to wait until I ran that errand to box it up.

I plan to go to Vienna on Saturday, June 1, so on Friday, May 31, I go to the Registration Office to de-register from good old Ferdinand-Jergitsch-Straße 18. I fill out the form and hand it to the woman working at the office, who tells me that I've written down the wrong address. I tell her that she's the one with the wrong address, considering my personal knowledge of the subject. While she concedes the point, she also insists that I de-register from the house where I'm registered. I de-register from Ferdinand-Georg-Waldmüller-Straße 18, which I did not know existed until that precise moment, and continue on the day's errands.

After closing my bank account and failing an attempt to file my taxes, I go back home to pack up my school bag into my bright yellow Austrian Post box, reminding myself all the while to take out my passport before I send it back to South Carolina. I get back into my room, where I have the distinct, vivid memory of taking my passport out of the front pocket, placing it gently into a side pocket of my carry-on bag, throwing out other papers and various useless things which have accumulated in my school bag throughout the year, and checking the side pocket of my carry-on bag afterwards to make sure that I had, in fact, transferred my passport from the one bag to the other. 

All of this is pure fantasy. Two days before leaving Austria for good to travel into six countries in three and a half weeks, I mailed my passport home. 

Two days later, in Vienna, three hours before my flight is set to take off to Oslo, I'm walking to the car of the niece of one of my co-workers as she's about to drive me to the airport, when she jokingly asks me if I have my passport, because that's one of those questions you ask people under the reasonable assumption that they are not inept morons. Completely under the illusion that I had indeed, for one shining moment, acted as a competent individual and, at the very least, not mailed my passport home, I go to check the side pocket of my bag, expecting to pull out a passport in triumph and continue to the airport on my unstoppable march through northern Europe. In this hallucinatory state, however, I neglect to account for the fact that I am, indeed, me, and my triumphal passport presentation does not happen. Nor does it happen when I check the other side pocket, and right now me and Kati have found ourselves in a bit of a pickle, now haven't we.

The airport and consulate are in the same direction, so we get into the car and call the airline company to see whether or not I need a passport to get onto my flight. Unable to reach the airline company, we call the airport itself, and they helpfully hang up on me.

With this new information, we make the executive decision to go to the consulate. We find the consulate has closed an hour before, and call the number the sign outside tells us to call in such a situation. A woman picks up, and I explain that I have found myself without a passport (neglecting the whole "mailed it home" aspect) and need to catch a flight to Norway in less than three hours. She sets me up for an appointment the next day, but then says that, because Norway is in the Schengen Area, I "might be able to risk it." For Dave "Snake-Eyes" Wile, that's music to my ears. 

We go to the airport, and while waiting in line to check in to my flight, I check every single orifice of every bag in my possession, praying that my passport might reconstitute itself in my presence. Because it's too busy being halfway across the Atlantic Ocean, that doesn't happen. We get to the front of the check-in line, and I show the woman working the counter a photocopy of my passport that I travel with just in case I somehow lose my passport, laughably hypothetical though that scenario may be, and my Austrian residency permit, while Kati convinces her to let me onto the flight. After about 5 or 10 minutes of angering everyone behind me in line, I'm finally allowed to check in. By the time she weighs my bag, the check-in woman is too exhausted to give a damn that it's 5 kilos overweight. Against all odds, we're heading to Oslo. Buckle up, kids.

Who needs passports when you've packed plastic fish homeless men have given you?

I land in Oslo in the dead of night, or at least when the orange glow is at its lowest point on the horizon, avoid all passport controls, and cry silently into a $10 7-Eleven hotdog. I get to the hostel, sleep, and go sightseeing the next day, which was a Tuesday. Considering that I leave on Thursday morning, I decide that Wednesday should be a decent time to go to the American consulate and work this whole passport ordeal out.

I get to the embassy, where the guard tells me that everyone inside is too busy to deal with me, until I point out the gravitas of my situation, namely that "I've just lost my passport and am leaving for Stockholm at 7:30 AM tomorrow." He eventually relents, and the guy working the Passport and Emergency Services counter gives me some forms to fill out to formally claim a lost passport and to apply for a new one. Unfortunately, the earliest he can make an appointment for me is the next day at 8:30 AM. However, since I'm taking the train to Stockholm instead of flying, I "might be able to risk it." 

Off to Stockholm it is then, Snake-Eyes. While it's certainly easier to travel undocumented by train than by air, it's also not guaranteed that a vagabond such as myself could travel completely unharassed. Between Munich and Klagenfurt, for example, after a weekend spent prepping the LSAT via homelessness, I was woken up and subjected to an utterly ridiculous and dehumanizing search of my belongings and person by the border security to clear me of all suspicion of intentions of terrorism. This ride wasn't going to be a cakewalk. I buy a sandwich with the last of my Norwegian kroner from a woman with the voice of a Siren and head to the tracks.

I get on the train and pick out a nice seat in a booth for four with two sets of two seats facing each other and a table in between. We cross into Sweden, and no border control board the train. I'm feeling pretty comfortable about my transit situation, and start to relax and enjoy the Swedish landscape. Suddenly, some absolute fuckface does literally the worst thing one human being has done to another person in history. This complete asshole gets on the train, and with the two seats across from me perfectly unoccupied and two-thirds of a train to pick from, sits down right the fuck next to me.

Half of my vision of the Swedish countryside is now completely unavailable to me, obscured by this immaculate prick; I've got to deal with my thighs rubbing up against his inconsiderate fucking thighs; he's breathing all up and in my train air with that offensive mouth of his, that despicable affront to evolution. I am seething. I consider crawling under the table to sit on the other side of the booth, but decide that would be too drastic, and continue stewing in a white rage. I'm so angry I just go to sleep, and I don't wake up until someone taps me on the shoulder to inform me the train has reached its final destination in Stockholm.

Once I get to Stockholm, I find my hostel, and decide to go find the embassy before I'm informed that today is, perchance, Sweden's National Day. The Royal Palace is open to the public, there's gonna be a parade, it's about to be nuts in Stockholm; the passport affair can wait. 

Some members of the Royal Family waving hello to me.

The next morning I trudge on down to the embassy, where I once again do my "Hey, whoa, my passport's suddenly disappeared! How crazy is that?!" schtick, and this time the guard is just a prick to me. The embassy's busy dealing with the fallout from all the rioting business, so he can't give me an appointment until 9:30 AM on Monday, which just so happens to be the day after I'm scheduled to be in Copenhagen. Worse, he doesn't tell me I might be able to risk anything. In fact, when I suggest such a desperate maneuver, he strongly condemns any notion I have that I might be able to travel without travel documents, and tells me to go file a police report, reschedule my flights, and come back Monday. Certainly not one of the mavericks America's employed at their other embassies.

I go file a police report which says, translating from the Swedish: "Wile states that he lost his American passport in unknown ways; the passport was in one of his bags." If you consider it "unknown" how a human adult could mail his passport back to his home country two days before traveling, and also take into account the fact that the passport was indeed in one of my bags, which was in a box on its merry way stateside, then we can at least consider this a half-truth. 

I spend Saturday terrified about having to convince someone at the airport to let me leave Sweden for Copenhagen without a passport, and come up with a contingency plan should they find my arguments less than persuasive. I'd have to pay another $25 for the bus back from the airport, but then I would go to the train station and buy a ticket to Copenhagen, because people under 25 can apparently buy train tickets at reduced prices less than 24 hours before the train's departure times. It would cost some money, but certainly less than rescheduling a flight. Bottom line, security guard at the American Embassy in Stockholm: if I'm still in Sweden on Monday, it'll be in chains.

Sunday morning, I catch the bus to the embassy, roll out to the airport, and everything is self-check-in. The self-check-in kiosk even printed a checked-luggage tag out for me to put on my own damn bag. Just for future reference, adoring faithful, those tags are much more difficult to put on bags than the people who check your luggage would have you believe. It's a remarkably long sticker, and as soon as you lose your alignment, may God have mercy on your mortal soul. Needless to say, I lost my alignment faster than my '92 Camry does after a tune-up. The bar code's ended up on a different side of the tag than the destination airport code, parts of the tag have been squeezed into a bow-tie-macaroni-like configuration, I can't even pull off the damn receipt part of it without the whole mechanism descending into an absolute farce; it was pure chaos down there.

By comparison, this assault on aesthetics looks downright professional.

I'm embarrassed to show this shambolic display to the woman at the check-in counter. She begrudgingly accepts this mess of a tagged bag after I get it down to an acceptable weight, and sends me to security.

At security, my delusion that I would somehow get through the airport without being requested to show any form of ID gets predictably crushed. Luckily, I have a speech prepared for the moment. I pull out my passport photocopy, my Austrian residency permit, my application for a new passport from Norway, and my Swedish police report, and, handing them to the guy checking passports in respective order, let it fly. "I've lost my passport; this is a photocopy of my passport, this is a residency permit that says I'm allowed to be in Europe [no it doesn't], I've already started the application for a new passport, and here's a police report saying that the passport is lost." 

He checks the photocopy, and asks me, "Have you contacted your embassy?"

Oh no. A question. I hadn't been expecting that. End of the line, kid. 

Wait just a second there, Snake-Eyes, I think to myself, you actually have contacted your embassy. Hoping to avoid a situation like the ones I'd run into in all the other countries on my U.S. Embassies in Scandinavia World Tour '13, I actually sent an e-mail explaining my situation to the U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen (leaving out, of course, the detail that I knew good and well where my passport was) in an attempt to get an appointment for once before I was scheduled to leave a country. Sure, they never responded to it, but, if I've done nothing else, I have indeed contacted my embassy.

"Yes I have," I say, authoritatively, because now I'm in the driver's seat of this conversation. And just like that, he lets me through to the gate.  

Stockholm Arlanda Airport security.

I get to Copenhagen on a Sunday, so the embassy's closed. Monday morning, I waltz on up to the embassy, and the guard gargles something that I can't understand. I stand there silently and look confused at him. He repeats whatever he was saying in the same incomprehensible manner, and I keep on squinting at him in the same idiotic manner.  Somehow, on my walk to the embassy, when a policeman with a riot shield asked me something in Danish, at that moment I was perfectly capable of asking him to repeat himself; he asked me whether I'd seen a man walking around the cemetery with a sword (I had not, but I would let him know if I did). However, on this occasion, I did not have that degree of wherewithal.

I continue to stare dumbly at him, and finally he points me in a direction and tells me to go stand there. I go over there for a while, but then I realize that he just thought I was being an ass and wanted me to go be an ass in a location that wasn't directly in front of his face. It dawns on me that I should just ask him again, so I explain to him that I was not, in fact, intending to be an ass, but had just not understood him. He responds, slowly and deliberately, "What can I do for you?"

Ugh, that is so what he was saying. I explain my passport predicament, and he eventually lets me inside, telling the guard working the metal detector to make sure he speaks slowly to me. I get to the waiting room, and eventually my number gets called. I go to a desk and hand the woman there all my various documents and $135. She goes through them, and after a long silence, she looks up at me. "You don't have a passport?" she clarifies. "And you got through Norway, Sweden, and Denmark?"

"Yup!" I answer, proudly. The woman just sighs, the utter disgust with modern European border security measures palpable, and turns around to go file my paperwork. 

She comes back, and tells me that if I return to the embassy sometime between 9 AM and noon, I should have a replacement passport waiting for me. When I come back the next day, I mosey on through because I'm a rising star on the Scandinavian embassy circuit, and the consul signs my replacement passport into effect. 

After 8 days traveling, entering 3 different countries, visiting 4 consulates and skipping out on appointments set at 3 of them, lying and telling half-truths to 4 embassies, 2 airports, and 1 police force, I was a documented traveler once again. 

Despite the fact that a replacement passport looks faker than a pornstar's orgasm, I get in and out of Scotland without incident. I get into Iceland on June 21, and check into my hostel in Reykjavik. The girl working the check-in desk asks to see my passport, and I proudly present it to her, in the same manner I had intended to do three weeks prior while walking to Kati's car. I put it back in my bag and go upstairs to get my stuff settled in my room. Just on a hunch, I check to make sure my passport is still in my bag. It isn't. I check both side pockets, and empty them completely. I go rummaging through the main pocket, even though there's no way I put it there, and come up empty. 

I run back downstairs, and ask the girl if she ever handed me my passport back after I showed it to her. She replies that not only did she give it back, but she remembers me putting it back into a pocket in my bag. This is pure fantasy.

I go back and forth between the lobby on the second floor and my room on the fourth floor maybe three or four times, and still have no passport. I'm beginning to become pretty irked by the fact that my bag has developed a forcefield around it that not only rejects my passport, but convinces people that I've managed to put my passport safely within its confines. 

That's it, I realize. It hit the forcefield, bounced off harmlessly, and fell on the floor somewhere in the lobby. It's just science. I run back downstairs, and there, right underneath the front desk, lies my passport in all of its glory. I hold my passport up to the girl, sigh exasperatedly, turn around, and wordlessly go back upstairs while she chuckles at my carelessness. If she only knew. 

David Hits the Slopes

I am not always a graceful man. Don't get me wrong, adoring faithful: your mental image of me gallantly strolling along these callous streets with the swagger of some rap star/cowboy Megazord and the savoir faire of a person who knows what savoir faire means aren't entirely inaccurate. It's just that occasionally, like one occasion in the supermarket about 3 days ago, I might happen to confuse the hand holding the shower gel with the hand holding the fruit and stab myself square in the eyeball with a banana. We can't be on all the time. 

"I'm an animal: half man, half mammal." Remember that gem, Cowboy Jay-Z?

However, while in Austria I've resolved to put those momentary lapses in grace aside and learn me how to ski. Everyone in Austria skis. It's just a necessary part of life for these people. Half of them slalomed down the birth canal, and the other half have never looked their fathers in the eye. Once my students hear that I've never skied, they all stare at me with wonder and bemusement and vague suspicion, mouths agape, distraught as to how I could have reached this ripe old age while never once strapping metal slats to my feet two kilometers above sea level and checking to see if someone had left the gravity on. When one is in the Alps, one skis. When in Rome, and all that. 

Elephants, Hannibal? It's like you're not even trying. No wonder the Romans didn't like you much.

Luckily, about a month and a half ago, Klagenfurt's fairgrounds hosted a winter sport flea market, so I already found myself in possession of some second-hand skis, poles, boots, and skiing attire consisting of no less than 5 color tones but heavily stressing the purples and turquoise. All of this equipment only set me back around €40, truly a small price to pay to declare such a strong fashion statement. Andy and Amanda also purchased some skis and skiwear. Andy grabbed a silver-gray onesie with alternating yellow and red squares across the shoulders suitable for the amount of space travel he planned to embark upon, while Amanda picked out an oversized matching neon green-and-purple jacket and pants set to smuggle out any musically talented family of political dissenters she might come across. You gotta look good to ski good, kids. 

After languishing in a corner in my room for six weeks, my skis were finally called into action when Pip (slave name Philippa) asked via the Facebooks if anyone would be down for skiing on Friday, January 11th. Immediately, Andy, Amanda, and I responded that we were, indeed, down. Even though I inexplicably hadn't yet bought a hat and gloves to match my outfit, it was high time to see what all this skiing fuss was about. 

Friday morning, I meet Andy and Amanda at the train station at around 10:40 AM. I notice that, while I've worn street clothes and packed my skisuit in my backpack, they've gone ahead and worn theirs to the station. All at once, the true error of my ways became starkly evident: I was the asshole wearing shoes on the beach. I was a goddamn shoobie. Tragically, my shoobie-ship would only increase throughout the day. 

I don't know how it's come to this, Otto Rocket.

We went to the grocery store in the station, bought some food for lunch, and hopped on the train to Villach. After getting in at just past 11:30 AM, a bus would take us to Annenheim, and from there we could get our ski passes for the Gerlitzen. Unfortunately, because planning ahead is for losers, we find out at the bus station in Villach that the bus to Annenheim doesn't come for an hour and a half. We take advantage of this break to eat lunch and grab some noon-time beers from a nearby cafe. While sipping said beers, the three of us realize that if we truly want to ski like champions, it isn't enough merely to look like we just waltzed out of 1986; we had to literally waltz out of 1986. 

Since only Andy's onesie was capable of actual time travel, we were compelled to take on new personas. Amanda, Andy, and I became Tiffany, Blaine, and Brent, respectively. Blaine would challenge any movie's protagonist that happened to cross his path to a race down "The Black Mamba," a slope so named because of a creative wordplay incorporating its level of difficulty, shape, and mortality rate, while Brent would shout less-than-original insults at the unsuspecting film character and high-five Blaine with douche-tastic regularity. After a montage emphasizing the protagonist's dedication and Blaine's arrogance, Blaine would suffer an inevitable though still shocking defeat. Thereupon Tiffany would leave him and run ecstatically into the winner's passionate embrace. Fade to black, bitches; we were gonna be the greatest skiers to ever conquer the Gerlitzen.

When we eventually reach the mountain, Blaine and I have to go get our flea market skis adjusted to fit our boots. In an unusual turn of events, Andy bought the defective skis and mine worked perfectly fine. Looking back on it, it appears that when Andy helped me pick out my skis, the Fates became confused as to who purchased which pair of skis, forcing them to take a 50-50 shot on which pair to destroy for their twisted pleasure. Sadly, Andy's skis paid the price for whatever karmic evil I did to deserve the constant ass-kicking which I've been getting a steady diet of since I've entered this God-forsaken land. 

The only thing in Klagenfurt open 24/7. 

For this hardship, Blaine, Brent is truly sorry.  

After Blaine rents himself a pair of skis, we meet up with Pip, and I find the nearest bathroom to change out of my shoobie costume. I exit the bathroom a brand new Brent, a Brent in skis and not shoes, a Brent who could hold his head up high until he realized that he left his ski pass in the wool coat which was now tucked snugly into his backpack. I dig it out while a nice little line of non-shoobies forms behind me, judging my every shoobish move. Suddenly, I notice I'm stranded, abandoned by Pip, Blaine, and Tiff. I would have to brave the first ski lift of my life alone. 

I climb in and hold on for dear life, thoughts bouncing between wondering how the woman in front of me had managed to snag a chair with foot rests to put her skis on and wrapping my mind around how so few people had died from falling from these unrestrained death traps. At the end of the lift, I see the woman in front of me raise a metal bar above her head. I look up. Guess that answers both of those questions. 

Soon, however, the ride was over for me. Upon getting out of the lift, my keen observational skills duly note that, despite not knowing how to ski, I have been thrust into skiing against my will. My keen observational skills soon also notice that I haven't the vaguest idea as to how to stop this unintentional skiing. Quickly approaching Blaine, who has somehow managed to hit the brakes on his skis, I panic and essentially just kind of sit down on my ass. Boom: stopped. 

I stand back up, and Pip points me and Tiffany, who had only skied once as a 14-year-old, to the easiest slope on the mountain. I attempt to mosey my skis on over to the entrance gate, and proceed to get nowhere. Every time I move a ski forward, it goes right back to where it had been before once I have to shift my weight to the other ski. I start sliding backwards. People are beginning to stare at the incompetent moron moonwalking in their midst. Tiff is already almost at the entrance to the slope. I shout at Blaine and Pip for guidance, but they're already long gone down the mountainside. It feels like quicksand: the more I struggle, the deeper I sink. I have to have been here for almost ten minutes. I am going to die here. 

"Fight against the sadness," indeed.

My only other option being a slow death on a mountainside, I take off my skis, pick them up, and just walk to the damn entrance. My figurative shoobie-ship has become literal. These were low times for Brent. Since those fateful shoe-borne steps, he's tied his pastel-colored sweater sleeves a little more tightly around his neck and his windmill high-fives have been a little less righteous. His Duran Duran albums seem to hold within them deeper meanings and greater truths. Wiser, yes, but at what cost?

I get behind Tiffany in the line for the beginners' slope, grab the rope tow when it comes around, put it between my legs when Blaine yells at me from afar to do that, and let it pull me to the top of the slope. I let go of the rope, and quickly remember that stopping my skis is not in my repertoire. Like the long march of Death, I slowly yet unavoidably float out across the top of the slope, stabbing my poles into the mountainside to no avail, until I slip over the edge of the trail and, once more, onto my ass. 

Recap Ratio:
Times Brent's Skis Have Moved : Times Brent's Been on His Ass = 2 : 2

This little episode ushers in a pretty comic 5 minute period wherein I find myself unable to climb out of the ditch in which I'm standing, with Blaine attempting to give me advice on climbing uphill sideways which I prove absolutely incapable of following. Eventually, I once again have to settle for rage quitting and taking my skis off before I can extricate myself from the situation. 

Once unditched, I emerge at the top of a slope, ready to hit the ski button and tear the Gerlitzen apart. I stick my poles into the ground and push off. For the first time in my life, I'm skiing.

And boy, am I skiing. I kind of curve to the left. I kind of curve back to the right. I go straight. I keep going straight. I'm zooming right along, and holy fuck why hasn't anyone told me how to stop this death machine yet. I'm out of control. Something has gone terribly wrong. I bail, but survive due to the miracle that is my ass. 

While one must look good to ski good, one must apparently also ski good to ski good.

Not one to give up so easily on a beginners' slope, I get right back on the horse, go back to the top of the hill, and Pip and I run some braking drills. My third time through I manage to maintain control of the skis during the run, and pizza the living Christ out of them at the bottom until they've submitted to my will. The heavens rejoice in my achievement, and I raise my arms to the skies in triumph. It's time for the big boy slope. I take three steps following Blaine and somehow fall down. Doesn't count, the heavens didn't see it.

Recap Ratio:
Times Brent's Skis Have Moved : Times Brent's Been on His Ass = 6 : 5

Despite my less-than-exemplary record on the beginners' slope, Blaine maintains that the only real way to learn how to ski is by going down something with a decent gradient to it. We mosey on over to a more advanced slope, and Blaine takes off, followed by Tiff. Pip tells me to try and cut back and forth across the mountainside, so I figure I should listen to her. Perhaps now is a good time to mention that it hasn't snowed in more than a month and that the mountain is covered in a solid sheet of ice.

I zoom off. I curve a little left. I curve a little right. I curve a little left, and then a little right again. I'm feeling good. I do that cool thing that I've seen skiers in the Olympics do when they put their poles underneath their arms to minimize wind resistance. 

That's the ticket. Out of my way, wind.

That was an objectively stupid thing to do, but pretty in-character for Brent. I soon notice 4 things:

1. I'm going way too fast for my own good.
2. I have no means by which to rectify Fact #1.
3. There's a whole lot of mountain left, and I'm only gonna be getting faster.
4. I either have to bail, or die at the bottom of the second easiest slope on the mountain.

So I resolve to crash, and my God was it violent. I hit a solid 3 or 4 complete rotations, my skis fly off, my poles are strewn about, and Pip has to come behind me and help me retrieve all my various accoutrements. This exact process happens 2 more times on that slope, until I finally stumble my way to the bottom. The experience was a little jarring, to say the least. 

Recap Ratio: 

Times Brent's Skis Have Moved : Times Brent's Been on His Ass = 9 : 8

For some reason, after that inspiring display of natural skiing talent, Blaine and Pip decide that Tiff and I should try our hands at descending from the top of the Gerlitzen. We ride up the lift to the summit, and then Tiff and I make the fatal mistake of looking down the mountain. We tell them they can go on without us. 

Before her descent, Pip warns us that we have 40 minutes to get down to the bottom of the mountain before the ski lifts close. We were about to go down and practice on the beginners' slope again, but then, apparently forgetting the overall shape of mountains, I notice that one of the slopes leaving from the top of the mountain doesn't seem very steep. I mosey my way down a little and survive, so I tell Tiff to come join me. She obliges, and we slowly wend our way down the mountainside. 

I get to where the slope turns a little steeper, stop via some miracle of the Lord's doing, and turn around to see Tiffany getting back up after a crash. I wait for her to catch up to me, and then we figure we might as well see how far down we can go.  

Check out that form.

I keep going until that old familiar feeling of losing control of the skis comes upon me, and then, rather than immediately bailing, I try to turn out of it, which only succeeds in getting my skis crossing themselves like a priest and tossing me a couple yards down the mountain. I look up to check Tiffany's progress, and she's bailed after somehow putting herself in a situation where her only other option was crashing into some netting.

We gather up our things once again and make the noble attempt to continue our descent. After getting to a point where the slope becomes just stupidly too steep for the fifth ski run of my life, I crash again. Tiffany soon follows, and I work my way over to her. We discuss our situation.

In over our heads and down on our asses.

We've managed to stick ourselves into a pretty rough predicament where we're too far down the slope to go back up and the rest of the trail is far too difficult for skiers of our caliber. I decide to walk until I can get to a part of the slope I think I can ski, and Tiffany resolves to butt-ski her way down. Thousands of skiers pass, each whispering clearly in my general direction: "Shoobie."

We work our way down the mountain, with me making another failed attempt at skiing, until we finally get to what we thought was the end of the slope but is really just where the slope gets steep enough for a team of douchebag children to rub their skiing abilities in our faces and practice slalom runs. During this part of the journey, I join Amanda in butt-skiing, which actually turns out to be extremely practical.
Fun fact for the kids at home: Friction on the ass apparently reverses the polarity of one's general pelvic area, causing the right testicle to become magnetically attracted to the bellybutton. 

Recap Ratio:
Times Brent's Skis Have Moved : Times Brent's Been on His Ass = 13 : 11

The sun has started going down. We're cold, wet, tired. But the ski lift has entered into sight. The kids finish skiing, and one of their fathers takes Tiff down the rest of the mountain on his snowmobile while I walk the rest of the way. At the bottom, we talk to these magical skiing children, and they actually aren't douchebags at all, much to my disappointment. They're just goofy kids who ski every day and were amazed to meet some Americans. Also, one of their mothers brought a fluffy-ass dog. Pricks. 

Since the ski lift we've arrived at actually won't take us where we need to go, the father with the snowmobile takes us back up to the summit, with me riding in the backseat and Tiffany riding in the basket on the front like a freezing E.T.

Although I guess he does look a little chilly here.

When we get back to the top of the mountain, we walk over to a ski lift and try to hop on it. Naturally, because I'm involved in the story, the door has been locked a mere seconds earlier. We look across at another ski lift and watch as the operator shuts it off and leaves his booth. We run over to him and beg him to turn it back on, but apparently that isn't under his jurisdiction, so he takes us over to the administrative cabin to see what he can do for us. He comes back out and tells us to wait where we are until 5 PM. That's 20 minutes from now, but still better than nothing. 

So there we are, Brent and Tiff, standing on the top of an Alp as the sun goes down and the world turns dark, contemplating building an igloo for our survival. A little after 5, we see the headlights of a magnificently large vehicle roll up, and the angel descended in earthly form as the driver of this divine chariot tells us to hop in. 

The driver takes us on his evening round down the mountain in this vehicle, which I had hoped would be called a "snowzoni" or a "zamsnowni," but seems to be actually dubbed a "snowcat" or "trail groomer."

Would never have guessed he was a Decepticon. You really can't trust anything these days.

It takes us as far as it can, which is the bottom of the ski lift that takes you to the beginner's slope, so we still have another gondola to take to get to the bottom of the mountain.

We try to enter the doors for that one, but they're shockingly locked too. The people who operate it are still there, so we have to go to them and beg for their kindness and mercy. Not having much of either kindness or mercy to spare, one of them decides that being an absolute cockbag to us is the best solution to everyone's problems. He tells us we can't go down the lift because it closed at 5 PM. Seeing as we're 20 minutes late, it's already been shut off. We ask him if we're supposed to just walk down the mountain; he informs us that that isn't a possibility because it will take 4 hours. We seem to have reached an impasse. 

Eventually, however, the guys decide to let us in and turn the lift back on, at great cost and sacrifice to themselves. Oh, wait, no it wasn't; they had to ride it down too. Something about getting home, I think I heard. The dialect's a little rough on the ears. 

Anyways, following this exchange that consisted mostly of a man showing off his powers of mind-reading by saying the exact words we wanted to hear least at any given moment, Tiff and I climb into our gondola, take it down, and meet Blaine and Pip in the bar at the base of the mountain. Scarred and scared, we had, if nothing else, survived. 

Some life lessons taken from the day's events:
Things that are hard to do on skis:

• Stand
• Walk
• Ski
• Remain healthy

Things that are easy to do on skis:

• Fall violently

David Sends Austria into Anaphylactic Shock, Vol. II

From David Sends Austria into Anaphylactic Shock, Vol. I.

Chapter the Seventh

IN WHICH DAVID BREAKS AUSTRIA

And then the whole country just went to shit around me. For the last two weeks, if I have touched something, it has disintegrated in a matter of seconds, sometimes even in mere days. Some countries just ain't made Dave-proof. Austria, welcome to the Danger Zone. 

What products, specifically, can't handle your overwhelming existence, O glorious warrior-poet, you ask? 

MUSTARD CONTAINERS. Although my grocery-shopping history is admittedly a little touch-and-go, I'd thought that in the last couple years I'd started to get the hang of it. So after going grocery shopping for ingredients with which to make a mustard-based barbecue sauce and a few household supplies for my new apartment, I reverted back to my Washingtonian ways and bought a fabric grocery bag. I filled that badboy up, threw it on my bike handles, and pedaled off into the wind. After two blocks of the bag bumping against my wheel spokes, I decide to pull over and readjust, just as a precaution to keep anything from, y'know, breaking. After the readjustment, a gap opens up in traffic, and I floor it onto the street. On my first pedal rotation, however, an explosion of mustard bursts forth from the confines of the bag and garnishes my front tire. 

Here's a visual cue.

I piece together the crime scene, and deduce that I have, it seems, ripped that shopping bag a new one. Specifically, the bag wandered into my spokes, and a mustard tube (it comes packaged in aluminum tubes like toothpaste here) got caught, whereupon the spokes tore off the top of the tube through the grocery bag. After a few choice words, I roll up the mustard tube to keep it from emptying, push all my groceries away from the corner of the bag with the hole, and continue biking. That ought to teach me to take precautions. 

SHOPPING BAGS. Whereupon, about 4 feet later, I notice a massive tear has opened up the entire back of the shopping bag. I throw that bitch out at the next trash can I find, throw everything into the basket I bought to act as a hamper in my apartment, and precariously walked my bike the 20 minutes to my apartment. 

BIKES. This one's pretty simple. I was mounting my bike all pro-like, and in a decidedly un-pro manner, I kicked off my back reflector. Could've happened to anyone, really. 

BIKE LOCKS. Then I broke my bike key whilst trying to take my bike lock off the back of my bike in order to lock the damn thing right before leaving on a train bound for Villach for the weekend, so me and Andy were forced to double-down on his lock until we got back and I could get my spare key.

LEDERHOSEN. In Villach, we had a Trachtenparty, meaning everyone wore dirndls and lederhosen. I also apparently needed lederhosen for my school's ball (the Pitz Ball, as it were), so this was just a good investment. However, after a mere single use, my lederhosen broke right in the scrotal region. Because I bought them on sale, I couldn't even take them back to the store. Since I'm not trying to show up to the Pitz Ball in ballsack-less lederhosen, this was a low point in the life of The Kid.

"Ah, yup, looks like my testes have found their way onto the floor again."

THE WEATHER. After doing my laundry for the first time in Austria, I hung it out to dry because Austrians are too busy worrying about their silly "environment" to dry their clothes with any efficiency. For the next two days, it rained mercilessly upon my freshly-laundered clothing. I cut my losses, bought a drying rack for my room, and took my clothes inside from the elements which the heavens had unleashed upon them. The weather has been nothing short of heavenly since.

LIGHTS. When the lights in my room are off, they flicker on. Not only is this random circuit-completion disconcerting, but it's also a bitch to fall asleep to. In order to do that, I have to unscrew the lightbulbs in my room every night, so the first thing I do every morning when I wake up at 5:30 in the AM (i.e., while it's still dark outside) is stand on my bed and put my lightbulbs back in their sockets. Which is precisely what I want to do as soon as I wake up at 5:30 in the morning. 

BIKE LOCKS REDUX. Not to be outdone, my spare bike key then broke in my bike lock while my bike was locked. Tough titties, Dave.

HOW DID YOU OVERCOME THESE CATASTROPHES? Moxie. Also, I duct taped the reflector back onto my bike. And one of my students at school told me her grandma would sew my lederhosen back together. And I bought a handsaw and went to damn town on my bike lock until I freed my poor bicycle from his terrestrial shackles. So, to recap, that is, in order: moxie, duct tape, one grandmother, and a saw. And my bike is still coated in mustard.

Chapter the Eighth 

IN WHICH AUSTRIA BREAKS DAVID

The planet was collapsing around my ears, and I hadn't even touched 21st century technology yet. But try as I might, I can't go too long without touching 21st century technology, so you'd best to put on a reading helmet, because you're about to take a ridiculous story to the face.

Once I had my new apartment, I needed internet access. One of the other English teaching assistants in Klagenfurt, Veronica, had accidentally bought two internet sticks (USB ports with SIM-cards in them that act as modems), so I bought one off of her for the store price of €30. It worked wonders for 3 days, when the initial amount on the SIM-card expired. I added €20 to the SIM-card, and thought I'd just get right on back to interneting real quick. My computer, sensing that I could now access the internet of my own accord, reacted in the most predictable manner by refusing to read the internet stick. The next day, I take the stick to Andy's, plug it into Bex's computer, and run some tests. It still doesn't work, so I know it's the stick and not my computer, because science. Though, honestly, it's a little foolish of me to just assume that an Austrian product would work in my presence.  

I take the stick back to the store from which it came, called "3," and they tell me I need to have the receipt. I text Veronica to see if she has the receipt, and, impossibly, she actually does. Come Monday, I go get the receipt from her apartment, and I go back to 3. Since that all seemed a little too easy, the guy at 3 informs me that I do not, in fact, have the correct receipt, and so he can't do anything for me. I ask Veronica if she has the right one, and, more in tune with my life, she doesn't. Still, I need the internet, so I go back to 3 the next day to buy a new internet stick. That way, I can at least salvage the €20 I dropped and only take a €30 hit.

Of course, because my happiness angers the gods, 3 has, at some point in the last three weeks, ceased production of internet sticks. 

Pictured: the devil.

The blond lady at the store, who's apparently miffed at the level to which spending €50 for no internet upsets me, tells me that I need to go to the electronics store in the mall to find myself an internet stick. 

I go to the electronics store, Saturn, and for just €45, I buy myself an internet stick that's compatible with 3's SIM-card because I refuse to let that €20 go to waste. Of course, I might as well have just thrown the God-forsaken thing in the trash, since I had already made the fatal error of being in its vicinity. Much like a Native American in slavery, the stick would only work for five minutes at a time before dying. Even worse than a Native American in slavery, however, its death would freeze Windows 7. I run a system recovery to take the programs it downloaded off my computer, and the next morning I try to get it to work again, thinking that maybe I just downloaded everything wrong. This second time it works even less effectively, so I run the system recovery again and head off to school so as not to be late. 

When I get back from school, my computer is just finishing up some diagnostics test that it definitely didn't do for my first system recovery, and caps that off by rebooting itself. On the reboot, however, all I get is a wonderful little message informing me that the "BOOTMGR is missing." Apparently, without a boot manager, my laptop can't even manage your average boot, so a reboot was just entirely out of the question. 

This boot, fortunately, is still in the cards.

For those of you keeping track at home, I've now spent €95 on the internet, and have gotten no internet and killed my computer in the process. At least I had the receipt for this stick, so I brought it back to Saturn and got my €45 back. So, on the bright side, it's only cost me €50 to kill my computer. 

HOW DID YOU OVERCOME THIS CATASTROPHE? This one's still in the process of opening its can of whoop-ass on me, actually. My computer is still dead. I've written this entire blog post on a combination of the computer in the teachers' lounge at Pitzelstätten and Bex's laptop in between her marathon Skyping seshes. Such is my commitment to you, my yearning faithful. Oh, and on Friday I found out that my house already had internet I could've hopped on for the whopping sum of €5 a month.

David Sends Austria into Anaphylactic Shock, Vol. I

Slightly more than one month ago, I, your humble narrator, left my native shores and headed for the wilderness of the Austrian hinterlands, where I had been conscripted to instruct the native savages in my mother tongue. On September 15, my flight touched down in the alpine valleys of the W. A. Mozart Airport in Salzburg, where I had planned to stay until the 24th in order to get my registration and visa situations worked out. Adjusting for the time difference upon landing, it was time to party, and I had a fresh case of ruckus tucked away in my carry-on. I disembarked from the airplane, shot one of the 47 Alps surrounding the place the old double sideways six-shooters, and watched it crumble to the ground.

For a small-scale re-enactment, see what you just did.

Through no fault of its own, Austria was about to get rocked. 

Perhaps sensing its own inevitable shortcomings in handling the extent to which rocking was about to be done unto it, Austria's immune system dialed up to 11, and the emergency D. Wile transplant has been getting rejected like the main character at the beginning of a coming-of-age movie ever since. 

Chapter the First 

IN WHICH DAVID'S LUGGAGE ABSCONDS

This allergic reaction to my mere existence first manifested itself after I had been in Austrian territory for roughly 7 minutes. I do the usual post-flight routine of heading to the baggage claim and waiting for my bag, along with my other co-passengers. Unfortunately, my bag does not do its part in this post-flight routine, namely, showing up on the baggage claim conveyor belt. For about five minutes after everyone had already left, I keep staring at the little curtain where the bags magically appear, expecting my bag to arrive by sheer force of human will. Finally, the conveyor belt stops, and a woman wearing official-enough-for-an-airport-looking clothes tells me that I have, indeed, been boned. Not having a phone number and not knowing the address of my hostel, I give the two women working the Lost and Found the hostel's name, which I only remembered via a miracle of God, and they tell me it will work itself out. At the very least, if it doesn't work itself out, they tell me that once I buy a phone I should give them a ring.

HOW DID I OVERCOME THIS CATASTROPHE? It actually did work itself out. Three days later, I went downstairs to the main desk to buy me some breakfast, and as if by magic, there's my luggage cowering in the corner. We saw the twinkle in each others' eyes, rushed into each others' arms, and then I unzipped his ass and took out my Adidas, because Salzburg is flipping made out of cobblestones, and the boat shoes I had been wearing since I left home aren't called cobblestone shoes for a reason. Although, I guess my Adidas also aren't called cobblestone shoes. I digress.

Chapter the Second
IN WHICH DAVID BECOMES HOMELESS

Coming into Austria, I was under the vague impression that I had housing readily available to me. I was under this impression because I had done the necessary research to find an apartment, and I had not only exchanged e-mails, but had also become Facebook friends, with the person with whom I expected to live. We'll call him Tom, because that's his name. Tom and I got along swimmingly. He appreciated how laid back I was, and I appreciated his commitment to party as documented on the Facebookz. We were going to have a blast, and I didn't even have to pay a security deposit. Every time I asked for the address of the apartment, however, Tom would get a little dodgy. Finally, in the lobby of the hostel in Salzburg, I initiated a Facebook chat sesh with Tom again. This time, I demanded the address, calmly pointing out that I needed it to do all that stuff like live in Austria and what-have-you. At this point, Tom burst my non-homeless bubble, informing me that we could not live together because the hundreds of euros I would be breadwinning every month would cancel his housing subsidy from the Austrian government. America, this is the face of socialism.

Put that hammer and sickle down, pinko.

I now had six days before I had to move to Klagenfurt and no address to stay at once I arrived. Even more exciting, without an address, I couldn't register with the authorities to get my residency permit, open a bank account to receive my extensive subsidy-canceling salary, or even benefit from all the communism floating around these parts and get my government-issued health insurance. The situation was looking, dare I say, dire. 

HOW DID I OVERCOME THIS CATASTROPHE? Shockingly, I made friends. At the orientation seminar in Saalbach-Hinterglemm, I became besties with Andy, Bex, and Amanda, an Englishman and two American girls respectively, the former two of which, in stark contrast to your fabled poet-scribe, actually had a roof over their heads, a television, and a David-sized couch. I just had to find an apartment of my own, and I would be settled. Things were looking up, and just in time for school to start. 

Chapter the Third 

IN WHICH DAVID ANNE FRANKS IT

My first night on the couch was the night of Friday, the 28th of September. My second night on the couch was Saturday, and on Sunday morning around 10 o'clock in the AM, I awake after a what has been an entire week of frighteningly heavy drinking to the quizzical visage of Andy and Bex's landlord, Dietmar, who wants to know just who in tarnation I am. Upon informing the Dietz of my status as honored guest, Dietmar tells me that, whilst guests are allowed, I am not allowed to "live" in the apartment, and I have to GTFO without even the option to tits. Unfortunate, considering the entire conversation took place with yours truly all up in his boxer-briefs.

Apparently, sleeping on someone's couch for two nights constitutes "living" in this country, and also landlords are just allowed to waltz on into your apartment whenever they damn well please. All of this comes as some shock to me, but Dietmar doesn't have time for shock. Nor does he tolerate my continued presence in his apartment. I wake Andy up, gather all of my things into his room, and hit the mean streets of Klagenfurt on a Sunday morning. Absolutely nothing in this town is open on Sunday, so I just walked around for two hours before coming back to Andy's. Arrangements would have to be altered. 

HOW DID I OVERCOME THIS CATASTROPHE? Through stealth and cunning. I would avoid Dietmar at all costs. I would sleep on the floor in Bex's room, with only a blow-up camping mattress and a sleeping bag between me and nature/linoleum. In the mornings, before leaving for school, I would hide any trace of my existence. These were dark times, and they were about to get darker. 

Yea, even darker than this.

Chapter the Fourth

IN WHICH DAVID DOES HIS THANG

Let's face it, adoring millions: We all knew, in our heart of hearts, that this one was coming. I had spent three weeks since my departure from Columbia tempting the gods of transport. I somehow got on all three flights from Charlotte to Salzburg without missing any of them. I even had a baggage-check lady run me through JFK's security just so I could get to my flight on time. She used her badge and everything, shit was nuts. I got on the right bus to my hostel in Salzburg, and I made all the trains from Salzburg to Hinterglemm and from Hinterglemm to Klagenfurt without a problem. Hell, I even got on the right bus at the right time to get from Andy's apartment to my school way out in the farmland on my first day of classes. This little bout of punctuality just wasn't sustainable. I was letting the loyal, yearning fans of this blog down, and I knew it. Luckily for you, loving faithful, there's always a second day of school. 

On that fate-soaked Tuesday, I ran out of Andy's apartment slightly late, left my school bag in Bex's room, tragically hesitated on the elevator/stairs decision, and got to the bus stop right as a bus arrived. I hopped on. The streets didn't look like they did on Monday. I convinced myself it was just because I'd been seated facing the other way the day before. Even the people on the bus didn't seem like the same people that were on it on Monday, but hey, who takes the same bus on Monday and Tuesday? Don't be foolish. Still, once the bus up and turned its ass around, I started to become a little less sure of myself. When it got back to Andy and Bex's stop, I was all but certain that this had, indeed, been the wrong bus. 

I waited at the stop for the right one, and eventually showed up for school 3 periods late. Sorry I'm a champion. 

HOW DID I OVERCOME THIS ENTIRELY PREDICTABLE CATASTROPHE? Everyone at school just kinda got over it, actually. It's a very difficult school to get to. Shit is out in the boonies. 

Look at all them boonies.

Also, everyone at the Höhere Bundeslehranstalt für Land- und Ernährungswirtschaft Pitzelstätten is remarkably friendly and understanding, which bodes well for me.

Chapter the Fifth

IN WHICH DAVID'S HOMELESSNESS INCHES TOWARDS THE TEMPORARY

After four nights of roughing it on Bex's floor, I inked a contract with my future landlord, Berend, agreeing to drop €270/mo. on an unfurnished 12 square-meter room. Of course, I still had to live with Andy and Bex until I had time to move my year's supply of luggage across Klagenfurt, but now I had a definite plan. Also, Berend wanted a €540 security deposit and the €270 rent ASAP, and I still had to buy a bed and various other furnishings to get comfy. For those of you counting at home, you can put your fingers down because that's roughly A MILLION FUCKING EUROS. Also, did I mention that we don't get paid for the first time until mid-November? Because we don't get paid for the first time until mid-goddamn-November. And until I can move my belongings, I'm still in hiding from the wrath of Dietmar on the safe though remarkably uncomfortable haven that is Bex's floor.

HOW DID I OVERCOME THIS CATASTROPHE? Pitzelstätten stepped up big in the clutch. They took a bed and a table from the dorms and delivered it to my house. Then one of the English teachers, Astrid, took me to her place where she stored a bunch of excess crap in the basement, and I got myself a coat rack, a makeshift dresser, and the complete works of Nietzsche in the original German. Mercifully, Berend took pity upon my poverty and told me not to worry about the security deposit until I get paid. Finally, Astrid volunteered her car to move all of my various accoutrements from Andy's to my place. After spending a grand total of €0, my apartment was furnished and I would be moving in on Saturday. Clutch.

Chapter the Sixth

IN WHICH DAVID GETS SMOKED OUT

Friday night was my last night sleeping on Bex's floor. It was emotional for all of us, but this eagle's gotta spread his wings. Unfortunately, right as I got out of the shower and before I could get my sweet-ass feathers all plumed up for freedom, I'm once again met by the grisly visage of Dietmar, Landlord Extraordinaire. And boy, if he isn't just itching to have a word with me in the living room. We're always so quick to forget that the Anne Frank deal wasn't such a feel-good story after all.

You and me against the world, Anne. You and me.

We retire to the living room, where Dietmar asks for my passport. After I fetch it for him, he snaps some pictures of it with his iPhone. I have been documented. The realness level in the building has increased dramatically. He asked me what would happen in America if someone did what I'd done, and rather than saying "nothing," I just implied it by literally saying nothing. I'm a sly fox when it comes down to it, is what that is. He suggested that such a hypothetical person would be arrested. I didn't have the heart to tell him that, not only are people allowed to sleep for a week in their friends' apartments, but that the landlord who just all willy-nilly-like busts into your apartment would be the one in trouble, so I just implied it by literally saying nothing. Sly fox, like I said.

HOW DID I OVERCOME THIS CATASTROPHE? Dietmar may be Austrian and I may be American, but we both speak the same language. We both speak three of the same languages, in fact: English, German, and dolla dolla bills, y'all. I dropped him a 50 spot, told him I was already on my way out that afternoon anyways, and he seemed satisfied. In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.   

Continue to David Sends Austria into Anaphylactic Shock, Vol. II.