Hooking Up, Part 3

About August 30, 2003

Another random meet-up, this time in Slovakia.

Finally I left the Tatras, bound for Krakow. This trip involved a long wait in Kosice, Slovakia, which actually turned out to be really pleasant. I had a picnic lunch with a couple of Aussies next to the Musical Fountain in the very pretty city center. Then, when I was just strolling around I was yelled at from an outdoor cafe, and it turned out to be a guy I had met on the train from Poprad, who had in turn met up with a few mates and was drinking beer and hanging out. The invited me to sit down and relax with them, and I innocently did, with no clue what I was getting myself into.

Two of the guys were Aussies- one named Rhino with a shaved head, and another named Ryan or something, with a sort-of Mohawk, lip ring, pierced eyebrow, massive tattoo on one shoulder, and an unbelievable personality. He took great delight in calling and yelling at good-looking girls walking by, and often gave them the slow clap to show his approval. It was like he had no inhibitions- he wanted to eat, drink and get laid, and it was infectious. We all acted like him after a few beers, and I have to admit that it was really fun to just say whatever the hell I wanted, be a chauvinist dick for a while. However, the flip side of this came when we went out to eat. When the bill came I had to pay by credit card, so it was easy for me, but the other four ended up having a huge crisis about the bill. Rhino disappeared- I still have no idea where he went. Basically, the two Canadians ended up footing most of the bill, and the Aussies were just a mess. By the time I left them they were wandering around looking for the Blue Lagoon Club. It was sort of like getting caught up in a storm, bouncing around for a few hours, then getting spat out in the rain at night. Looking back on the afternoon and evening I have no idea what happened- it made no sense at all, I could never have predicted it, and it ended so quickly. Sometimes I've heard this called 'road magic', when seemingly random things all come together when you're on the road.

A final note to this post: I woke up the next morning feeling like death, if death could be beaten about the head with a mallet and kicked down several city blocks. I had to sprint to catch a train, and barely got on at all, with a pounding, spinning head, pouring sweat, roiling stomach, and clutching a bag of what I hoped were muffins from a vending machine in the train station. I'm pretty sure the nice Slovaks on the train were appalled- they probably wished they could bring back the USSR just to keep Americans like me out. God Bless America!

(Picture caption: Bratislava Castle, Bratislava Slovakia. And yes, it had nothing to do with this post. Wiseass.)