Holland: A Prologue

A week in Amsterdam without much of a plan. Drink some beers, see some art, travel around the country a bit, and catch up with some friends. We figured it was destiny to dispel urban travel legend number 1: when one works, one stops living. Why not get into good habits from day one? So we studied the guide books, adjusted the plans when a hurricane wrecked havoc in Mexico, counted down the days, packed our bags and set out; just as we have always done. No matter what you are doing or where you are at, it's always nice to escape.

What follows is a true and accurate account of two Iowan's Holland Holiday. No names have been changed for no one is really that innocent...

A Jamacian Dance

I have no idea how I got here, wherever here is. But here I am. Creeping along the shaded edge of a blue, canopy covered maze of chain-link fence, palm trees, and blacktop. Everything is an over-heated commotion of a blur. From the moment I hopped off the taxi my face was impacted with a thrust of thick, moist tropical air. Am I sleepwalking? In a trance? I hear everyone and see everything, yet I am somehow displaced. Not here. Floating. Separated from the scene before me. Senseless, yet not without my senses. I can smell the faint yet unmistakable stench of stale sweat. Further and further I crawl. The sun seems to set as the light dims into a faux-dusk of dancing shadows cast by outstretched and tangled palm leaves. Further I hike, my wife Kara by my side. Thirsty, hot and tired. “Are we going to survive?”, I wonder.

Suddenly we stop.

“Ah, here we are, mon”, he said with a smile.

We were here, and it was time to shop. And so it was I found myself in the midst of the Ocho Rios market. Kara and I stepped out of taxi and were instantly consumed by a swarm of shop owners offering us coffee, crafts, and the occasional zip-locked baggie of cannabis.

“Come with me mon. I will be your friend and show you the shops”, a mellow, low and soothing voice arose from this mass of madness. “I will bring you to my shop and show you my things. If you like what you see, then we make a deal. If you don't like what you see, no hard feelings. You just give me a dollar for my guidance and we are still friends. Irie, yea?”. Without giving it a thought, we followed this voice into the market and began our quest for the perfect Jamaican souvenir.

“This is my shop”, our leader said as we stopped at a shady corner tucked into the far end of the market. “Take some time. See what you like. Then we can make a deal.”

His shop consisted only of a small corner, about the size of a hall closet, and was overflowing with an erratic array of goods. Coasters, multi-colored masks, and smooth wooden jewelry cluttered the shelves. Fierce African elephants and five-foot tall giraffes tumbled from the entrance and onto the pavement. It was a souvenir-sucker’s treasure-trove.

“How much for the carved male and female busts?”, I inquired.

“The bookends”, he clarified. “They are sixty dollars. But for you my friend, I will give you a deal and charge you only fifty.” He kindly rested his hand on my shoulder for an added touch of scripted sincerity.

I looked up and gave him a sly smile. “Let the bartering begin”, I thought. It was time to dance.

“Hmm”, I replied with folded arms and feigned frustration. “How about the coasters?”

“These coasters? You like the coasters? They are quite nice. They have a Jamaican ten dollar piece engraved in them”, he highlighted. “The coasters are forty dollars, but I will gladly take ten dollars off”.

Not a bad deal, but not a good deal, and by no means what I wanted. I wanted the bookends. It was my move. I had to tread cautiously, attempt to read his mind. “How low would he go”? “What is his breaking point”? These are the prying questions the skilled negotiator queries.

Doubt, the champion negotiator’s arch-nemesis. Always spitting negativity. “He’s reading you like a book.” “You’re going to stumble.” “Ha! He deals with tourists like you everyday.” “He’ll eat you for breakfast.” “You haven’t got a chance".

“No", confidence rallies. "You have the skills, the skills of a champion shopper. You are the man Nick. You are the man. Now shop god dammit, shop like the man you are.”

“Humph”, I grunted with feigned impatience.

“Look mon, you are my friend and a guest in my country”, he said as he placed his hand on his heart as if about to recite a pledge. “I will give you the coasters and this for only thirty dollars”. He reached behind his back and presented to me a wooden goblet, the size of a shot glass. “Nice shot glass”, he said as he endearingly caressed his craft.

“Humph.” I desperately tried to cover my nerves while coyly wiping away the sweat beading on my forehead. I bit my lower lip, perhaps a little too hard. This was intense.

“The coasters and a shot glass?” I asked. “But what about my wife? I can’t expect her to sit idly by while I enjoy my shot of rum creme now can I?” I chuckled.

“Of course! You are a gentleman, I should have known”, he said with a false gesture of mental clumsiness. “Since I am a gentleman too, I will sell you the coasters and two shot glasses for only thirty dollars. How does that sound? Irie?”

Not wanting coasters and still fixated on the bookends, I looked to bring this dance full circle. It was time for a twirl.

“How much for the bookends?”

“The bookends? Thirty dollars”, he quickly answered without missing a beat. He slyly placed the coasters back on the shelf. He knew what I was after. I knew what he was after. It was a race to the finish.

“Can I buy just one?”, I naively asked. “How much for just one of the carved heads?”

“No! No! They are book ends. A set. A man and a woman. They would be lonely if they were separated”, he half-heartedly joked. “How about this mon. I know you like the bookends. I will give you the best deal in all of Jamaica.” He then hushed his voice, “You give me thirty dollars for the bookends and I give you the two shot glasses”, he paused, slowly peered over his shoulder while licking his lips, swallowed, and whispered, “for free.”

Now that was a deal. But rather enjoying my luck and the macho feeling my ego was presently basking in, I arrogantly pushed for more.

“We’re both college students and we’re a bit short on cash. How much to buy just one shot glass?”

“No! No!”, he shouted anxiously, showing what I thought to be a slight hint of frustration with a glaze of sweat.

I had him.

“I tell you what, here’s a deal. The best deal. My final offer. I can do no more." He quickly rebounded, “I usually don’t make such deals, but you are a good friend and a skilled negotiator, so I do this only for you. I sell you the bookends and give you the two shot glasses for only twenty-five dollars”.

"He said I had skills!", I thought excitedly as I gave him a smile and held out my hand. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

Money was exchanged, the bookends tenderly wrapped and Kara and I began to make our way to the exit. I was perspiring pride; enjoying a shopper’s high. Smiling to myself and thinking, “Nick, you sure know how to drive a bargain. You got yourself a hell of a deal.” I was a shopper with superhuman shopping skills. I was a man’s man. I felt a sudden, primal urge to puff my chest, grunt and scratch with reckless abandon. “I am Nick. Shopping Guru, King of the Bargain. Hear my roar”.

As I inhaled and readied to release a resonating roar, a merchant emerged from his stall carrying a set of bookends. A male and a female, similar to the set I had just bought. Very similar, perhaps on the verge of identical.

“I give you the best deal mon”, he began. “Because you are my good friend, I sell you these two handcrafted bookends for only ten dollars”.

Kara just laughed.

“I still have my two shot glasses”, I mumbled with a scratch.

Going Greyhound

As featured at: http://www.bootsnall.com/articles/06-06/going-greyhound-somwhere-on-interstate-80-united-states.html

"Farewell ye Greyhound where I suffered so much." The words of Allen Ginsberg echo in my mind. I stand on the cracked blacktop, outside an aged, caramel-colored bus station. I stare, aimlessly, watching my cross-country chariot fade into a hazy veil of diesel dust. The gray diesel fog delineates and floats away. Eighty hours of unbearable stench, eighty hours of hunger, and eighty hours of vertical attempts at sleep. Forty hours out. Forty hours back.

In the now vacant lot, I notice how the wind causes my shoulder-length hair to entangle with my overgrown, Amish-inspired beard. How my black and orange striped backpack slowly slides down my sloping shoulder. How kamikaze black flies dive at my sweat-clogged pores. How the crisp, clean smell of a Midwest spring cleanses my soul. It was good to be home.



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Kara and I board the dark, dank bus in the predawn bleakness of an early March morning. I cautiously glance down the aisle, desperately hoping to discover a pair of empty seats amongst those occupied by the sleeping dead. I am a hippie experiencing a seismic shift, yearning to be a yippee instead. The smell, that god-awful stench of being human fills the cabin. I check the destination marquee, expecting it to read "Calcutta". "San Francisco," it glowed. I had no choice but to find a seat.

Two empty seats right next to the latrine beckon us to the back. We trip over outstretched limbs sprawling into the aisle as we make our way to the back. We flop into our dust-filled seats and take a deep breath. Our nostrils are singed by the sour scent of stale fluorescent pink urinal cakes. This is not what I expected. "Where is my hippie trail?" I wonder. The bus pulls out, Iowa City fades and San Francisco hovers on the horizon - a mere forty hours away.

Somewhere in the depths of the night I am abruptly awoken from my cautious slumber. "Pit-stop," I mumble. The bus needs refueling and the toilet could use a refresher. We are ordered to do our time within the confines of the Cheyenne bus station.

"Shit hole". This is the adjective of choice when describing the station. If you think the bus smells bad, try smelling a bus station. This is the place where all buses dispense their collection of smells, sewage, and toxins. "Why is Greenland melting?" Come to the Cheyenne station and bear witness to the cause of global warming.

In order to keep your mind off the smell, the station offers visitors an array of amenities and family-friendly attractions. For example, there are rusted steel benches with sharp edges for two to nap on. You also have an opportunity to freshen up in the fully equipped bathroom, stocked with vomit encrusted sinks, dented stainless steel mirrors, and shrapnel cluttered showers. If none of these options are of interest to you, you can idle the hours away at the grill. Although the menu offers a wide array of selections, most are adequately described as a gourmet gathering of garbage, pounded into a petite patty, nuked until cancerous, and served on a stale, penicillin glazed roll. Bon appetite!

Back on the bus I notice several new passengers have embarked. There is the quartet smoking pot near the bathroom, the runaway adolescent involved in a questionable petting session with her much older seat mate, and the drunk with his face plastered against the window. Then there are the three elementary aged boys claiming the seats in front of me, turned around and staring at me from over the seat backs. Dirty faces. Dust speckled blonde hair, bangs masking satanic eyes. Green globs of germ-filled mucus congregating in their crust covered nostrils before slowly leaking towards their Kool-Aid coated upper lip. The high-pitched shrill of a prepubescent voice pierces my inner-ear. This was too much. Somewhere in the sands of Nevada I was to surrender my soul, and sanity, to the Three Sons of Satan.

"What's your name?" the oldest dirt-ball inquires.
"How-cough-cough-cough-old are-cough-you?", the youngest hacks into my face.
"Why is your hair long? You have long hair. Why is your hair long? She has long hair. Why is your hair long? Your hair is long like hers. Are you in love? Why is yours long? Are you a girl or a boy? You're a girl!", the middle terror fires at me with machine gun speed and hyperventilating excitement. His eyes light up and he lets out a gleeful giggle. He points his dirt filled, overgrown fingernail at Kara's startled face and declares, "You love a girl!" If ever Kara and I had thought about having children of our own, this living birth control made us both instantly celibate.

"Are you a boy, or a girl?", the youngest persist.
"You're a girl!" concludes the oldest.
"Girl's have long hair, giiiiiiiirllllllll." The third one starts to sing, "girls have long hair and you're a girl, girls have long hair and you're a girl". The others join in and the three of them sway back and forth.

That was it. I had had enough. I lose it and prematurely end their jingle. Grabbing them by their wax-filled ears, I stuff them into the overhead compartments, slamming the door shut with a sincere sense of satisfaction.

Of course I didn't really do that. But the thought did cross my mind. Instead I maturely put on my headphones, turned up the volume, and kicked the seat in front of me hard enough to put it well beyond the upright position.



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A little over a week later, we pull into the black top parking lot of the Iowa City station. Kara and I gather our belongings and dash down the metal steps, almost falling out of the bus. We gasp at the fresh air. The staleness of the bus is now a possession of the past.

I stand where the bus had minutes before been. My long dirty-blond hair blows in the wind. I watch, silent, as the bus bounces down Burlington Street. I snap a picture, mentally calling it, "The End". I feel older. Somehow different, somehow changed. I feel, surprisingly, refreshed. Cleansed, perhaps spiritual. The bus fades into the horizon, leaving only a cloud of diesel dust. It quickly disseminates. Fades away, into the past. Gone.

"Farewell ye Greyhound", I say with a respectful and solemn nod of my head. I feel the dirt harden on my skin. I need to shower, perhaps cut my hair. A plane flies high above, leaving a long-lasting jet stream in its wake. I turn, and walk home.