Chapter 12- Planting seeds

“Home, home again. I like to be here when I can.

When I come home cold and tired. Its good to warm my 

bones besides the fire.” - Pink Floyd-“Us and them”

We stumbled out of the darkness and through the warm glow of James’ home. Drunk from driving and fatigued from foreign lands, we closed the green door of adventure behind us.  The world around us slept; or tried. Under the warm light of friendship, wine was drunk in measure and cheese was sliced in slabs. Like the empty bottles before us and the crumblings of unclaimed morsels, mere hours remained with our vacation. 

With two weeks, tires and teamwork we conquered 8 countries. In the dismissive slap of wind blown rain we ran our warm hands on the cold concrete of Normandy’s Nazi defense. In Paris we drank like drunkards in the cobblestone alleyways to the infectious tune of laughter. And on the Rhein we dined, under the weight of a mighty castle.

I had met Barry in Africa, James in Europe and Mike in America. Three friends, three continents. Like precious things one collects in far off lands, they now shared the same treasure room together of my lustful longing for leaving. We had all waxed fat on adventure and grown gluttonous on good company. Our wallets now thin, it was time to return to routine, time to wake up to work. But there was talk of more. And conversation- like water; and ideas- like seeds were liberally strewn on the fertile soil of friendship.

Perhaps there would be a sequel........

The End

All blogs written and photographed by Garrett Fulton

Number 34 Lower Street. The adventures beginning and end. 

Chapter 11- Digging up the past

In 1898 an immigrant Swedish farmer and his son unearthed an amazing find. What they dug up that day while clearing stumps for farmland would bring the world of archaeology to its knees. There, clutched in the tangled talons of a Poplars roots was a magical stone. Prying the trees fingers free from its precious possession, the two sod busters noticed its face scarred with mysterious markings. What was thought at first to be an Indian almanac by the two was later found to be old Norse.The inscription translated as follows:

Eight Gotalanders and 22 Northmen on this acquisition journey from Vinland far to the west. We had a camp by two shelters one day's journey north from this stone. We were fishing one day. After we came home, found 10 men red from blood and dead. Ave Maria. save from evil. There are 10 men by the inland sea to look after our ships fourteen days journey from this peninsula . Year 1362

Was this really carved by the Vikings? Had they ventured here to the interior centuries before Columbus? Would the history books would need re-writing, and all that we knew about transoceanic ancient voyages altered?

As ancient battles were fought with longswords, so today but with words. Debates raged over the next century with almost all Scandinavian linguist dismissing the 200 pound, couch cushion shaped rock as a bad hoax. Still however, some ardent adherents find enough evidence to keep the long ships of belief still rowing. 

For most Minnesotans however, folks of Scandinavian descent, the tale was just too delicious to dismiss. Any flies of fiction were brushed away from the dinner table so these children of the Norse could enjoy spooning in notions of their noble past. 

Fast forward 62 years.

In 1960 Minnesota joined as an expansion team to the National Football League. But what would their team name be? Minnesota had bears and blizzards, wolves and water, lakes and linx, fox and forests. But there seemed to be only one name to choose from.  

So thoroughly burned into the psyche of every Minnesotan was their Nordic heritage. From the moment they brush their teeth in the morning mirror to the day’s end when they finally turn out the lights, they feel, they know, they sense that they were once a part of something greater.

They sacked Lindisfarne, they slew Scots, the Picts they put to the sword. They founded Dublin, left Hamburg a burning ruin and Paris, ah yes Paris, they raped  like a common whore, again, and again. 

The dread of them spread like a plague. Europe was gangrenous with fear, rotting in angst, trembling in anticipation. Such horror inspired those witnessing to confess  "Never before in Britain has such a terror appeared".

For the fat, balding Minnesotan merchant it meant power. No matter how portly and pudgy he might be today, in the back of his mind he is always saying “you shoulda seen me 1,000 years ago when I was in my prime.”.

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(Behind the scenes: Minnesota beat Pittsburgh 34 to 27.  Wembly, one of the poorest stadiums I have ever been in for traffic flow, sold out 90,000 seats to an eclectic mix of nationalities)

(This photo taken from the web)

The Kensington Ruin Stone

French breakfast (nothing). A British breakfast (tea) and an American breakfast (beer)

Barry chooses to don a Vikings hat and root for the only team he knows or has a ticket to see.

Chapter 10- Message in a bottle

"Woke up this morning, cant believe what I saw. A hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore.

It seems like Im not alone being alone. Hundred billion cast aways, looking for a home".
- Sting

As the waves pounded the bow of the military boat, Private Thomas Hughes wrote one final note. The ink flowed across its surface, blue, like the English Channel they now crossed enroute to war. 

"Dear Wife, I am writing this note on this boat and dropping it into the sea just to see if it will reach you.

"If it does, sign this envelope on the right hand bottom corner where it says receipt. Put the date and hour of receipt and your name where it says signature and look after it well.

"Ta ta sweet, for the present. Your Hubby."

2 days later, Private Thomas died.  

Oddly, the 26 year old Thomas had chosen to give his final communiqué to a most unreliable messenger, the sea. But when he slipped that letter into the narrow opening in 1914, he impregnated that bottle with words that would eventually give birth.

As Private Hughes was buried, his words floated on ocean waves undying. As the first World War ended, the bottle rolled and pitched in parts unknown. While Nazi U-boats plied the north Atlantic, all the while the bottle watched. When atomic bombs exploded over Japan, the bottle listened. As blood ran on the Korean peninsula, the bottle wept. When the Hoola Hoop took its first spin, the bottle bubbled and laughed on frothy sea. And in the glare of rocket flare, as men first danced on the moon, the bottle looked up from the cold and lonely black and marveled. 

For 85 years the bottle journeyed. Burned by sunshine, bathed in moonshine, pelted with hail, and tossed in gales.  Surviving sharks and sharp rocks, ships bows and undertows. Finally, as the world waited in fearful anticipation of a new millennium, the bottle decided to migrate back home. It was time to conceive.

From the Thames, England’s long birth canal, the message was finally delivered. The covering note simply instructed:

"Sir or madam, youth or maid, Would you kindly forward the enclosed letter and earn the blessing of a poor British soldier on his way to the front this ninth day of September, 1914. Signed Private T. Hughes, Second Durham Light Infantry. Third Army Corp Expeditionary Force."

Mr Gowan, 43, a cod fisherman on the Essex coast took his marching orders seriously. The green ginger beer bottle with a screw-on rubber stopper he found that march morning in 1999 must be delivered.

The intended recipient however was no longer home; or alive. As years passed, widow Elizabeth emigrated to New Zealand, an ocean of time and water away. In 1979 Elizabeth died, never knowing the bottle was out there, swimming, struggling, searching, trying to find her. 

But just as seeds can be placed in bottles, so too in people. Elizabeth’s daughter,   born only a year before the bottle, was there to receive it in Auckland from the hands of the Englishman who pulled it from the sea.

"I am just so pleased to have been able to deliver it and to have been the postman." said Steve Gowen who had been flown overseas to place it in her hands. 

"It touches me very deeply to know that his passage reached a goal.”   the now 86 year old child commented. “I think he would be very proud it had been delivered. He was a very caring man,"

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( While crossing the English Channel, James and I threw our own bottles in. Mine reads:)

On September 16th, 2013,  3 friends set out on a 2 week adventure from Haslemere, England through to the Alps.

May the turbulent tide of unborn days bring us providence, quiet and good fortune in the dark forest of uncertain future through which we now wander. 

Chapter 9- Mugs and Jugs

"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems."-  Homer Simpson

Oktoberfest stands proud as the world’s largest fair. Yearly, 6 1/2 million beer swilling pilgrims migrate to Munich’s festival grounds in search of brewed barley. While there, they devour a half million chickens, mow down a quarter million sausages, consume 119 Oxen, finish off 40,000 kilos of fish, chew through 70,000 pork knuckles, pour back 130,000 liters of wine and slam over 7 million liters of beer.

For the less Bacchanalian, a quarter million liters of coffee awaits, a half million liters of lemonade stand to refresh and pretzels the size of steering wheels are sold without counting. 

All these consumables need an exit however, and,as any visitor will tell you, 2/3rds of a mile of urinals and 1000 toilets are never enough. Flushed and cleaned with 107,000 cubic meters of water and lit by 3 million kilowatts of electricity, the removal of nearly 1,000 tons of waste is a feat of engineering.

All this alcohol is not without its effects. 200 phones will ring the next day without their owners answering. 260 people will be searching in vain for their glasses and the users of 500 crutches will somehow miraculously be able to walk away from them without their aid. 4000 items in total will have been forgotten, lost, misplaced and left behind in the alcohol haze. 

Double Zeros point the way to the toilets...a VERY useful thing to know.

Downs an entire liter of beer in one go

Warning. Objects in this photo are larger than they appear.

Going for a liter in one downing.

Barry declares the war as officially over. Plump but pretty, this tipsy Teuton cant keep her mits off French resident Mr. Denham.

My old room mate Martin in red, raises a Mass Krug.

James and Barry, Martin and Andreas

Chapter 8- Final solutions

“Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.” -  Heinrich Heine. (1797-1856)

(side note: I had hoped to make it back to Dachau Concentration Camp for photography and to show Mike, but time didn't permit. I chose however to at least write about National Socialism.)

In 1933, while the Jews continued to wait in vain for thousands of years for a messiah, Germany’s decided to make an appearance. Unlike the Aryan ideal, this leader showed up short, with dark hair and was weak of physique. This diminutive dictator delivered however. To a people who were starving, he gave bread. To the unemployed, he provided work. To the immobile, he conjured automobiles. And to the trampled down he gave national pride. He was showing himself to be one of the greatest rulers in modern times. The Deutsche Volk fell in love with their Fuehrer. If they could have only seen into the future.

Right from the outset Hitler started implementing his “final solution”. The very first year Adolf seized power, the first concentration camp was built in Dachau. The locals were told that it was an Arbeit’s Lager, a work camp for dissidents and criminals. This sounded good. Every house needs cleaning now and again doesn't it? The Nazis were merely restoring order to a country recently released from chaos. 

From there it spread. Quietly, calmly, orderly, people started to be carted off. In the roar of Fascist fanaticism who would hear the cries of an unwanted minority?  With the wars beginning, more pressing matters were at hand. Men were dying on the front, consumables were to be rationed and attacks were becoming more frequent. The average German had no time worry about the welfare of others, or the desire to have conflict with the state. They turned away. They were silent. They didn’t want to see. They closed shutters and doors and left the problem with others. 

But all the while there was a cancer that was consuming Europe, and Nazism in its most malignant, insidious form would be known to all who played host for her. Work camps proliferated. But they were no longer holding centers, but death camps. These living mortuaries sprang up in eastern lands, far from prying German eyes. Auschwitz, Treblinka, Bergen Belsen. The names to this day inspire utter fear. Camps created for the sole purpose of ending life. It was murder and torment on an immeasurable scale. 

6 million were rounded up and exterminated. Each one a single arrest. Everyone a kicked in door, a control of papers, or the tip off of an informant.  And as the Nazi regime spread to all parts, there was no more escaping it. One could only hide, and hope, often in vain. The blood of mothers and martyrs boiled upon the altars of Aryan aggression. Many of the finest minds in Europe were incinerated. Doctors, Engineers, Architects, Scientists. Like libraries on fire, the Teutons had gone from burning books to burning people. Each one, volumes of experiences. Each one a human being with parents and friends. Each one with skills and stories to tell. Each one, with hopes and dreams, sadness and joy. Each one with plans and ideas. Each one, now gassed, shot or beaten to death.

In 1945 the war ended. The Jewish messiah never showed up, perhaps himself too terrified of the Germanic hordes.  2/3rds of all Jewery in east and western Europe had been wiped out. What remained was saved by invading forces. Communists to the east, Capitalists to the west. 

Finally Germany was forced to see the monster that they themselves had given birth to and suckled. Local citizens in the surrounding villages were themselves now rounded up paraded through the concentration camps. There were no more shutters to close, there were no more doors to lock, there was no more turning away. The Germans were forced to face the hellish child they raised. The gas chambers. The piles of corpses. The ovens. The ashes. The aftermath.  Such is the price of complicit silence. Such is the price of turning away. 

Chapter 7- Mambo Italiano

Italians. These mouthy mediterranean mammas boys lead the world in good design. From Ferraris to fashion wear, the pear shaped, pasta gobbling gluttons ooze more exceptional taste than the whole of America combined. The racy colors, the sexual lines, the innovative shapes, the wash of old and new. Its as if God himself gifted these swarthy citizens, and them alone. The rest of us hope like hungry dogs around a Dionysian banquet waiting for something to fall. 

And who doesn’t like pizza? It comes in  tantalizing triangles that you fly around the dinner table like an Imperial Cruiser until you, the Rebel commander, take a bite off the bow.  And a late night spaghetti dinner? Its fun, fattening and frivolous like raucous romance in a cobblestone square. 

Who can refuse Italian wine?  Blood red like the dagger of Brutus, cool as stockings in sidewalk sophistication, and intoxicating like luscious  lips, wet with laughter and Lambrusco.

Still these people of the boot irritate me. They simply act differently than the rest of us. Why scold when you can scream? Why weep when you can wail? Why like when you can love? Why wimper when you can whine? Why linger when you can lounge? Italians simply over emotionalize everything that the rest of us feel, the rest of us,  who wish  we had their flair.

(The following are all photos of Venice)

Some dude,...did some big stuff apparently.

Sadly, the only breeze was my heavy breathing

The Italian navy. They have glass bottoms boats so they can see the old Italian navy.

No saturation added. These peppers really are this bright.

The crew, left to right. Mike, Barry and James.

Chinese fast food.

Couples link their love with locks on Venetian bridges.

I kept tripping over my toungue

Pretty much sumarizes my view of Japanese tourists