I stopped the update queue a few months ago because there needed to a fleshing out of the original 52 entries and expansion on some thoughts. Now, I have a few more trips lined up over the next 6 months. I’m working on the spread overall. I wish to make it aware that you can submit your travel experiences here in either of the two formats you’ve seen me use. Brutal.
- Daryl
We walked
You took me to a healthy blend of music stores and spots were there was graffiti. My favorite part of all we visited and explored that day was this wall. I’ve seen pictures since then. Simply a constant piece that is always shifting perspectives. It seems that I stumble across images of this wall at times where I’m stepping forward in my life. Most recently i’ve come across the wall in this motorcyclevideo.
I remember feeling so uncomfortable in the city. I’d walk for miles while you were at school and go days without seeing another person of color. I started wearing glasses just because the ridiculousness of me in glasses made the thought of being alone here humorous, and by effect less overwhelming. I remember walking and standing at a traffic light, holding hands, waiting for it to turn green. When the light turned we would cross and everyone would be so busy staring none of the traffic would move. This would happen just as often when I was alone. You didn’t know how foreign I felt until I was in tears one day. The next day, you took me here and we went on a long walk. Thank you for that.
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This photo was taken in Warsaw, Poland. I don’t remember were it is or what it’s called but there was something interesting aside from this mile of just graffiti. Most of the pieces are separated in two pillar sections. When you get down the wall a ways, there’s one section that’s untouched. That wall is painted a very deep gray with a lit gas lantern coming out of it. That wall is dedicated to soldiers who lost their lives during the siege in 1939.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Travel Tunes
We’d slept in a man fort hidden down some back road industrial park in Ohio. Experience gained withstanding, my hatred for Columbus was just beginning to inflate. Even in the past years that I’ve revisited the cultural desert that birthed my American teenage nightmare I can never truly recall geography of the city.
I just remember:
Being wet by a pool with a dumb girl.
Wading in a tub of my own bodily fluid.
Being an accessory to the most belligerent case of B&E to date.
Duncan’s Huge eyes.
Waking up naked with the UPS guy staring at me.
Alex laughing when I told her she was cute.
David “Bigrig”
The show with Off Minor and My Disco.
Until then I didn’t know where to start growing up. When we began to pull away from all the manic bullshit of those three days we immediately argued. In the end we wouldn’t be playing the ‘big d and the kids table’ show. I agreed not to be supportive. This decision was to become a regret in 7 years.
My Disco was playing
4 months ago - 
20
20 
The hours to your doom.
This mountain range could not be identified between the first and hundredth. Still, there manages to be great significance from perception. The dichotomy that exist between settlement/valley and metropolis/range is reassuring in my world. I could imagine floating over the valley. In approaching the foot of the range my abilities would be all at once swarmed and overwhelmed. I can only see the image as growing. Any master of normalcy is a giant and more than that, a monster. The shrinking of that giant brings about a more moral self reflective freedom. Anyone can appreciate the notion of freedom. I guess it’s more those that choose to enact their notion and how others relate than it is an actuality.
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Route 1. Beautiful.
The sun don’t mean shit.
With all the sincerity both my body and person can offer I still cannot determine if stopping here for the night was the a great idea that changed my life. I think only in the frame of comedy does this idea register as good (and that would be to thin to hold weight). Driving halfway across a foreign country simply to sleep at a place named Dimmuborgir might have been the best worst idea I’ve ever had the pleasure of sharing with one of my best friends.
- As a reference, Dimmuborgir is a barren pit in a north eastern crook of Iceland. It is a place of massive black rock formations that serve as monolithic relics to a time when it was a godless barren geothermicly toxic lake-bed, centuries before. To it’s credit Dimmuborgir has had the honor of being the inspiration and actual name of the over the top woe-is-all-the-world black metal band, Dimmu Borgir. So, kudos to that.
As we approached the “Dark City” the wind blew with an intensity I’d yet to have felt. The moon had given a very clear reference of horizon over the last several hours of darkness. All at once it seemed that we could not see anything out of any of the windows much less the road right in front of us. Progenies Of The Great Apocalypse was hastily put on spin. Hands twisted and crawed into claws swinging recklessly about the car. We hadn’t really intended on staying at Dimmu for the night. Instead we we had gotten lost 20 minutes shy of our true destination, Dettifoss. However, int driving in around in a 20 mile circle over and over we lost the energy to continue.
There was a sign (of which I will post a picture eventually) that lead us into the heart of Dimmu. We followed the black unpaved road to a rock clearing and decided to bunk up in the car for the night. The temperature was roughly 3ºc outside of the car when we pulled over at about 2:20am. I took my jacket off zipped it up around my legs. I was wearing two hoodies, a scarf and I had also packed a fleece blanket which I draped over my torso and partially over my thighs. The scarf was draped over my head and I was also wearing a knitted beanie.
Needless to say, I was pretty confident in my ability to stay warm through the night.
It was 3:40am when I started to stir though I hadn’t made note of the time at that point. The car had been rocking back and forth from gusts of wind every other moment. Several minutes passed before I began to realize the discomfort of my situation. I slid my hands down the front of my pants came to a very shocking realization (that’s what she said). Aside from Cindy, I could no longer feel anything beneath my waist. It’s difficult to say exactly when it was Alex woke up finding himself in the same predicament, but he did eventually exclaim “This is bullshit.” He turned the car on and let it heat up for a few minutes and then eventually shut it back off. We slept for 20 minutes and then woke up, again in the same situation. This continued until eventually Alex grew completely frustrated and decided it would be keen of him to move the car to a lower point. Unable to see the area around us due to black rock everywhere, he wasn’t able to notice that he parked the car in the dead center of and open plain. We were now more exposed to the relentless wind than previously.
At 6:00am we both decided it was time to leave, we drove back up to top of the gravel pit we were originally parked and took some pictures. The picture above is from that moment.
In reflection, I guess it was worth the drive. It was definitely the best worst idea I’ve ever shared.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Travel Tunes
Like an idiot, I got off the bus at the wrong stop. My determination to walk seemed immediate and obvious. I think I was about 5 miles north from that exit on I-91 when I decided that I wanted to listen to Meneguar. The album repeated 3 times before the cop stopped me and offered me a ride the 9 remaining miles. I didn’t have a cellphone so I borrowed the police officers. I hadn’t kissed you yet. We tempted each other with the notion of that being how we should greet each other when we saw each other next. I was sweaty and you were a bit tired. That’s how I remember it. This was one of the longest walks of my life and one of my dearest memories.
Meneguar was playing.
This country is impossibly big
I’ve never even left my time zone before and now here I am.
18, new license, old van, driving half way across the world doing what I love. I’m not even certain how this is happening. The van barely fucking works and how am I supposed to stretch $110 over 3 weeks?
I find myself anticipating a sad story of the state of things. Which one of these rest stop workers isn’t going to put my measly change in my hand? When will I break down and sing my ole-niggra spiritual. I guess if you go looking for hate it will find you. If you don’t believe it exist it’ll just swallow you whole. Is it better to aggressive or “naive”? I can’t be naive if I know better I suppose. That would just make me an ignorant teenager. Oh… wait… ——————- Photo: from the back of Dingus (r.i.p.) taken by Alex McTigue I guess the only thing to learn from this set of photos is the various ways you lose something dear to you. It’s important to adapt to change. In most cases it’s for your own sanity. Occasionally is for someone else’s. I just wish it could be easier over time. As an adult I do more damage undermining myself and reflecting who I was/am as young and naive. That’s what that feeling is, for certain. Undermining
Piebald, Modern Life Is War, Drowning Man, In The Face of War, and Comeback Kid.
The pixelated sequin was in the most random places. Nevertheless, I appreciated anytime pieces emerged from around the corners of buildings. When I’d walk downtown to do laundry or get tea I’d pass dozens of places that seemed dedicated to street art. There were nuances about what I saw there that registered closer to the end of my trip. The art I was seeing wasn’t in-spite of it’s environment. I mean, how could it be with this place being as wonderful as it was? No, all the art I was stumbling across was invited. This was allowed to happened because it was being appreciated in a wider scope. For me the notion of this being acceptable in such a scale (with Reykjavik being so small and the pieces so large) was colossal in itself.
There was a parallel being created between past and present. From the hyper modern designed cafes to the retro-fitted biscuit factory turned hostel. Somehow this statement from a guy I met, Oli, sums up the thought.
Oli - “Ever since we slaughtered the last bishop we’ve entered into the Age of Reason.”
Me - (eyes widen with a growing smirk)
Oli - “Don’t worry, that was in the 1500’s”
(Source: whudat.de)
