A Long, Lonely, Adventurous Road

my traveling companion,
Katherine Elizabeth

Cześć!

One wild sojourn later, I write from Poznań, Poland where I just arrived a few hours ago after traveling across the continent. But I’m not here to see the Europe Cup matches, I’m afraid. I’m visiting a dear friend of mine, Zuzia, whom I have not seen in almost five years now. We met at the World Scout Jamboree 2007 in England, which in itself brings back a lot of really cool memories. That – of course – is another story altogether.

For the past three days, I have been taking the scenic and adventurous route from Naples to Poznań, traveling by bus, train, and foot across Europe with only my pack on my back. My mission has been to arrive in a way that spends the least amount of money, and I largely succeeded. I can also say that I had a few really nice stops along the way. It’s not as fast as it might have been hitchhiking, but it was certainly safer, more legal, and just as fun. I do think I’ll have to try hitchhiking some other time. I hear there are hitchhiking races in Europe, but that’s something for another time.

afternoon in Venice

early morning in Switzerland

Zurich

Now, when I was first talking about the possibility of coming, I did not understand why, but Zuzia told me to try to make an appointment to be in Poznań by June 21^st, the summer solstice. I agreed. Since I was leaving on the afternoon of the 18^th, I thought it might just be possible.

The first night, I had to pull off in Bologna, and I walked until I was far outside the city and in the countryside of western Emilia-Romania (not the part that was so devastated by the earthquakes recently). There, I lay down my tarp and stayed the night under the stars that had been guiding me north up to that point. The next morning, I awoke to the sunrise and a nice breakfast of cookies, cheese, and honey before setting off again. By that afternoon – with a few interesting local train stops and a lot more walking along the way – I was in Venice by 4:00 and then back in Milan by 8:40. I went north from there and was in Switzerland by that night.

The next day was a nice, long tour of eastern Switzerland by local train and bus, winding my way over the lovely mountains that I would someday rather hike than pass. For this trip, however, I could not take the slow path, because my deadline was already approaching fast. After losing a day between Naples and Milan, I would need to arrive in Poland within only a little over 30 hours. So all morning I did this until I arrived in Zürich after spending my lunchtime walking about Lucerne.

That was when I frighteningly discovered that I was suddenly out of money.

I put all my bills on a timed auto-pay system while I was out of the country, so everything lined up at just the moment I was arriving, and this was a fact had previously slipped my mind. I had made it as far as I had with only the money left over from Naples, and I had planned to get more at an ATM when I needed it. This was when I, while trying to get money for the next train, found that I didn’t have enough funds, and I realized what had happened. In conclusion, I was stuck in Zürich with only 20 Swiss franc cents.

It was at this point that I doubted just about everything. Poznań, where I needed to be the very next day, was over 800km (500 miles) away, and I wasn’t even sure if I could get that far by train in the time that I had left. Well, you know what strong men do when they need help. They pray. I had never in my life seen a chapel in a train station before, but this time it was quite a blessing.

The chaplain, after hearing my story, let me use the internet and I was able to get in touch with my father who saved the day. I will have to repay him when school starts again, but that, at least, is a time when I can afford to do so. I had some more wonderful talk with the chaplain, and spent some of my time there just in being thankful. With Dad’s help, I was in the Black Forest in Germany in no time at all, and that is where I finally spent the night.

The next morning, after a lovely (and early) sunrise tour of the little towns of the Scharzwald, I was on the ICE train to Berlin with new groceries and plenty of time to rest off the last two days. When I arrived in Berlin, I was able to get a very cheap and very lucky (in the middle of the EuroCup!) ticket to Poznań. After a three hour train ride, I made it on 21 June, 8:25pm. Just in time!

Zuzia and me, after I just arrived

Over the past five years, Zuzia and I have communicated over letters, email, Facebook, and the occasional Gmail chat, but we have never Skyped, so I have neither heard her voice nor seen her face for five years. Meeting a friend again after a time like that is quite a thing indeed. I was fifteen and she seventeen when we met, so although I know her well, I was meeting a brand new person for the first time in my life.

They have been telling me about various plans and ideas for activities over the course of my stay, so I think they intend to keep me in Poland until it’s time for me to go back home. But first, they took me out to the reason that they wanted me in Poznań so quickly…

There is a festival of lanterns on the summer solstice, a celebration of the longest day, shortest night, and the beginning of the summer. People gather near the river in the city in a big field and everyone gets a lamp. At around eleven o’clock at night (by agreement with the airport) everyone lights a lantern, makes a wish, and sends it off into the sky.

me, lighting my own lantern

the girls sending their wish off into the sky

It was so beautiful. All the lanterns fill the night air like a thousand flying stars. I felt like a little kid with wonder.

It was the perfect way to celebrate summer, and a perfect way to arrive. I’m so glad that I was able to make it in time. Afterward, they took me out to taste some of the city of Poznań and we made it back home very late. We will sleep late tomorrow, but I am glad to have finally made it to Poland.

Ania, me, and Zuzia

I’m Jonathon, and this is my life.

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A Nice Stay in Naples

Hello Again!

I write you now from Naples, Italy: the Bel Paese’s very own Posto al Sole.

For those of you who don’t know, I lived here as a foreign exchange student for about nine months one year ago (which explains why I speak Italian). I stayed in Naples with two different host families over the course of my program, and I met a huge amount of people between school and activities. Above all, I had a wonderful time. To me, Naples is my own true Italian home.

Beyond normal things such as being so very very glad to be eating wonderful food, to be seeing the sea, and to be diving and dodging through the tiny streets again, I’m very happy to be able to come back and visit everyone. I’m staying with another family that was very good to me and I’ve been up to a lot in the meantime.

The first and most important thing that I’ve been out and about doing is revisiting all of the friends that I made while I was here. The first day back, I went by on the last day of school to try to terrorize all of the classes of students that I knew in my time there, as well as run into some of my old teachers and visit the principal. Let’s just say that Operation Invasion was a huge success. I passed by the principal’s office without thinking about it too much at first and she thought that she saw a vision. Next thing I knew, I was wrapped in her arms. Over the course of the rest of the hour, she and I had an immense amount of fun calling all of the teachers to the office individually over the intercom and saying that they needed to coming with “massima urgenza.” It was so funny to see their faces when they realized what the “big problem” was. I had a great day full of lots of surprised faces and warm regreetings.

Halfway through my week and a half stay down here, my mom and siblings made the long 5-hour train ride down to the city to see the place that I called home for so long. I picked them up at the station and took them to their hotel straight away just to get everything square, and then we set off immediately on a travel program that I wrote just for them…

Our first stop was a lunch break at Trattoria Nennella.

Here, I was able to get them to have a satisfyingly close representation of a real, home-cooked Italian meal. They had a delicious potato and cheese pasta dish (the special of Nennella) and spaghetti Carbonara, and they loved both. And at last, they also got to try real buffalo mozzarella and absolutely adored it.

Next I took them up to Vomero (the neighborhood where I lived) and showed them where I used to do everything. They saw the school, the church, my houses, places where we hung out, places where we went walking, the stores where I used to get food and books, everything. They even got to see the view from the Castle St. Elmo over the whole city. That evening, I got together a big dinner with my exchange coordinator, all the families hosting me, and a few friends from school. It went so well. My family got to finally eat the real Neapolitan pizza (the best!) and meet everyone who took care of me over the course of the year. My siblings had a good time talking to some of the people I went to school with, even though they had to work hard to cross the language barrier. At the end of the night, the family hosting me now took me and them on a scenic car ride to see Naples by night – one of my favorite views in the world. Mom said it was like something out of her dreams.

The next morning, they took a bike ride on the street that runs along the sea, appropriately called Lungomare. Now (and this is new even for me) it’s closed to street traffic, and people ride bikes, go skating, and just walk there. It’s so beautiful. I admit that I really hope it stays that way, because it makes the seaside even nicer. All my little siblings enjoyed the ride, and I took them to have some typical Neapolitan and Italian sweets afterward.

After lunch, we made our last pass down Spaccanapoli, the famous street that cuts the old city in half and has some of the neatest and most iconic shops in the city: the ones that sell the Presepi. Mom, who loves art, almost never left. And, of course, my sisters got their taste of shopping. They all had a wonderful visit to Naples and went back home very content later that day.

Friday some friends and I went to the beach at Gaiola and I had my “primo mare” of the year. I caught some sun, went exploring and cliff jumping, chatted in Italian and in English, and had a good day at the sea. Thanks to the rocks where we went exploring, my fingers and toes were pretty cut up by the end of the day (so I’m a little worried about violin practice now) but it was a great sojourn.

Then, that night, I got a crash course lesson in being a lead singer.

Gabriele, who is the guy I’m staying with (the oldest son in the family) is a bassist in a sort of band, and he wanted me to come with them for their latest show to sing “Cough Syrup” by Young the Giant. They are above all a hard rock music group and occasionally do covers of Italian and other rock songs. Here is a video of them actually playing normally.

Anyway, Gabbò was quite excited to have a someone whose mother language was English to sing a song; so much so that he insisted all the other players learn “Cough Syrup” and play it that night without ever having practiced it together before (granted, the song is not exactly that hard to learn, but there may have been a misjudgment on (Gabbò) someone’s part)…

After getting everything from the microphone (which was having issues) to the (awful) acoustics of the room figured out, the guys played. I still hadn’t heard anyone play anything that sounded like “Cough Syrup” (not even during the first practices or the sound check) so at that point I had actually decided I wouldn’t have to worry about it. But in the end they called me on stage after all, so I gave the camera to Livia (Gabriele’s sister) so she could record everything.

I’ll put on the video without telling you about the surprise that the guys made me by accident. I’ll just say that they were always a hard rock group and it was my first time ever to sing on stage with a band.

Ah wow. At least in the end it turned out alright.

Over the last few days, I’ve been in Ischia with my first host family. We went to the beach twice yesterday (including at The Abasciatore Hotel that Uncle Pietro owns and maintains) and I even got to try small boat sailing and retake up windsurfing. I hope to return to Ischia again to stay longer someday, but until then I’ll just have to salute everyone dear to me there and sling my pack back on my shoulders.

Over the next two weeks, I’m not sure where I’ll be. I suppose I’ll just be – as the Italians would say – in giro. I’m doing well and continuing to enjoy my adventure. Now, if I could just find a way to see this straight, I’ll run away to some fortune that I should have found by now. Until then, I’m waiting for this cough syrup to go down.

I’m Jonathon, and this is my life.










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