It’s nice to be back among people who speak my language. Though it’s funny how paying $60 for a dinner in London seems totally reasonable while being “ripped off” by paying $10 for dinner in Marrakesh takes a serious emotional toll. Apparently it’s not what I pay that matters to my emotional well-being, it’s what everyone else pays.
Today will be an all-out assault on my stomach. I’m headed to London tomorrow, I can handle a bit of food poisoning on the plane. Everything I see that looks remotely edible (with the possible exception of the sheep brains) will be consumed today…
I’m getting around to writing up my adventures from my past week in Madrid, but I’m too busy dodging donkey carts and motobikes and haggling with street vendors and eating street food and drinking mint tea and fresh orange juice here in Marrakesh. Updates coming soon.
By this time next week, I will be back in the US, having visited four countries and three continents in the span of a week. London and Paris, here I come…
Today was a day of adventure.
It started off slowly, with me discovering a self-service fruit washer at the train station snack stand! We don’t have those in America.
Unfortunately, while I was washing my fruit, my train was being delayed, which meant that if I had taken it I would have missed my connection, and so I decided to just miss it and catch the next one.
The train ride went smoothly and I ended up in Füssen late but in good spirits.
I had come to see Neuschwanstein Castle, the “fairy-tale castle†of the late King Ludwig, the castle that inspired Walt Disney to create Cindarella’s castle.
It turned out the walk up to the castle was almost as beautiful as the castle itself. Walking up the road through the mist and waterfalls and trees changing color, I felt simply happy to be alive.
(The moment was only sullied by the realization that the Fruit and Nut bar I had bought was actually Rum Raisin and Nut. That’s not enough to spoil this view, though.)
When I came around a corner and saw the castle, I was again a little underwhelmed. It was neat, but not exactly what I was expecting. I wasn’t blown away until later…
The inside of the castle was stunning, dedicated to Wagner’s operas, from the paintings to the chandeliers to the sinks and wall carvings. There’s even a fake cave built into the king’s bedroom. Unfortunately, photography isn’t allowed inside the castle, but the views were spectacular.
Oh, and each urinal has a little fly painted on for you to aim at. Fit for a king!
After the tour, I hiked to a nearby bridge for a better view of the castle. Technically, the hike was “verbotenâ€, which, once again, seems to be the German way of saying, “If you get hurt, it’s your own fault.†It does make me wonder how I’m supposed to know when I’m really, truly, actually not supposed to do something.
I keep a running list of the happiest moments in my life. Standing on the bridge, freezing in my heavy coat and hat and scarf and gloves, eating dubious rum raisin chocolate, alone with no one else is slight, nothing do but simply be there and watch the castle and enjoy the experience, is being added to the list.
The day had one more adventure left, however. The bus from the castle to the train station only ran once an hour, so with the next bus 40 minutes away plus a 15 minute ride to the train station, I figured I would just walk. After all, there was a nice paved pedestrian footpath through the woods back to Füssen, which was only a mile and a half away.
The sun was setting, however, and on the way back I passed a huge meadow full of mist and was obviously compelled to leave the trail to go explore. It was beautiful in the dark and. I had to leap across the tiny rivulets that crisscrossed the meadow and startled a herd of deer wandering through the mist.
By the time I got back on the trail, the sun had gone down, leaving me with only the light from my cell phone to try to read the signs on the path, which were, of course, in German so I couldn’t understand them anyway, as I realized when I got to the next fork in the path.
After several wrong turns and asking directions from locals who spoke no English (thank you, Pimsleur German language CD’s, lessons 1-7!) I finally found myself in Füssen and realized that although it had been a mile and a half to Füssen, I still needed to find the train station inside the town.
And that is how I missed my train.
The rest of the evening was spent waiting in the Füssen train station until it closed and we were kicked out, then waiting in the very cold air for a train that apparently wasn’t coming, as we were informed by a bus driver. He took us to another nearby train station where I was finally able to catch a series of (very cold – what was up with the lousy heaters?) trains to get me back to Munich, at which point I hopped back on my bicycle and shivered my way back home.
What a great day!
Today was the last day of the European conference, and my last day to try to reclaim the money for my plane flight.
I woke up still feeling exhausted. I thought about just calling the conference organizer, but I knew the only way anything was going to get negotiated was if I went down to the conference in person.
I was feeling pretty negative. All I could really hope for at this point was finding Eddie, tricking him into giving me his last name, and then threatening him with a lawsuit/police action for fraud. Not fun, and considering the language and geographic obstacles, probably not even possible.
And of course, Eddie never did appear, so I was left just talking to the head guy.
It took all morning, but eventually we negotiated that I would be paid for half my flight in exchange for speaking at the conference. (Not saying anything = great negotiating tactic)
Originally it looked like another speaker wasn’t going to show, so I was asked if I could speak on five minutes notice.
Ummm. I guess so.
Fortunately, the other speaker did show up, so I ended up with about three hours. Three hours to prepare a speech that would be given to 800 people.
I was asked to talk about connecting with people, so I did, but the audience was exhausted and received the talk really, really, really badly. Part of the problem is that the topic lends itself to a more serious conversation. From here on out, I’m sticking to high-energy, fun topics when I speak.
I brought up a couple guys to do a demo onstage, basically a before and after display, but I got cut off ten minutes early (out of 40 minutes) so all the audience saw was the “before”. And they didn’t give me time to do a sales close, so there’s just some footage of me yelling out a website as I walk offstage.
I’m pretty disappointed with how everything went down. So much wasted potential.
On the bright side, on my way home I passed a store that sold man-tards (They’re not gay, they’re just European. OK, perhaps they’re gay and European.) and ate dinner at an Indian restaurant with the tackiest chandelier ever.
