I don’t have much time, so I’m going to make this quick.
In about two hours, I’m going to take a cab to the Kings Cross/St. Pancras train station, and from there, get a ticket on the Eurostar to Paris. I’ve been staying in London this weekend for a music festival that you’ve probably never heard of. It’s been amazing so far, and this week, I’m headed to the Netherlands for another such fest. I expect no less of it.
But today I’m going to Paris, and I’m going just to go. It’s a city I’ve wanted to see since I was about six years old and if I’m honest, I’m a little nervous about the prospect of actually being there. I don’t know. What if it sucks? What if I get there and Paris is like, “Oh no way dude, you can’t come in here?” I mean, my passport’s up to date and everything, but it could still happen.
Anyway, it’s a two-hour train ride and then a cab to La Tour Eiffel and then there you go, but before then, I need to pack up and get out of the hotel where I’ve been staying this weekend before the dude who owns it comes and kicks me out of the room. The walls in here are so thin every time a car goes by it feels like it’s running over my head, but I’ve been glad to have a place to crash within walking distance to where my time has been spent.
I don’t yet have a hotel in Paris, and I don’t have a working cellphone in the EU—really it’s the maps I miss the most (I’m not crying over a legitimate lack of access to email, as opposed to the one everyone just pretends they have these days)—but that’ll get worked out, and if I have to whip out the laptop at some sidewalk café and book something, I’ll do it. I’m not worried.
Traveling is something I wish I could do more of. More to the point, I wish this trip was longer. But the 04/25 issue isn’t even started yet and I’m basically hemorrhaging money I don’t have every second I’m here—and it counts about double thanks to the dollar/pound or dollar/euro exchange rate—so although I’ve been invited to yet another fest, this one in Berlin, the weekend after this one coming, I’ll still be on my way home a week from today.
My comfort is in saying, “maybe next year,” but really, probably not. I don’t know what my situation will be in a year’s time, but I can’t imagine it’ll allow for this kind of ridiculous fiscal irresponsibility, whatever it is. So I’ll enjoy what I can when I can. Probably best not to worry about it. Paris today. Tomorrow, on to Eindhoven to catch up with some friends who are on tour. Then on to where that next fest will start up on Thursday—a town called Tilburg in the Netherlands—and to set up base there for the remainder of the week. It feels good to be this excited to be alive.
Alright, the alarm on my watch just went off. Gotta go.
JJ Koczan
jj@theaquarian.com
