27

I turned 27 on a bus approaching the border control between Bulgaria and Turkey. By the time the 17 hour day ended I was celebrating 4000 feet in the air over China having a beer and watching the Hangover. Since started this blog there have been a lot of things that tied themselves together in the meaning of the name of this blog. Before I start, let me excuse myself for any mistakes or lack of editing of this post. This is the morning after celebrating my teams' first win/game for my new team in Perth, Australia. I guess writing while hungover is becoming a common occurrence but if it was good enough it was for Hemingway and Bukowski its good enough for me.

After wearing 17 in high school, 27 was always the number that I chose for my baseball jersey. It is also the number of outs in a baseball game; recorded consecutively, they make a perfect game. At 27 years old I chased a game for 26 years. A game that, for me and many others, defines their childhood, connects them to their home, their family, and their friends.  Just yesterday I got a whiff of the familiar sharp smell of pine tar I said, "this reminds me of the best days of my life." It reminded me of the time of my life where I was first getting a taste of freedom and but still getting spend care free time playing a game with my friends. At seventeen my love for the game became my life. For the next ten years, like any love, I completely committed myself to it, I made any sacrifice that it demanded that I make, and I gave my life to it and got back some of the worst pain and the greatest glory. Everything in my life was framed by the game and I have been far beyond lucky to have friends and family, teachers and coaches who have allowed me to live in this frame.  The game has led me on a great journey that has introduced me to the best human beings that I know over miles of north American road and eventually to Holland.

I thought Holland might be the end of this wild road after some odd ups and downs in the last few years. I guess it seems appropriate but then again nobody ever recorded the 27th out.  Just like the conversation that got me to Holland, I first that was a joke but a few days past and a serious commitment was made to play in Australia. Less than a week later I was leaving a little village in Bulgaria where I woke up to sounds of roosters crowing to hearing Magpies cry in new home here in Perth. 27 is going to be another great year of  baseball and I'm praying for extra innings.

My computer is broken so I will skip a couple of posts about Bulgaria that are on the hard drive for now.

Dirty, Smelly, Happy Hippies

Last Friday

The ringing of the cow bells and the rooster crowing is the only thing I can hear above the smell of my armpits. It’s a quaint place called the Happy Hippy Hostel. This last week I have been helping a South African/British couple realize their dream of creating an eco hostel in rural Bulgaria.  With no running water and the closest thing to a shower being a dip in the river, I feel a little bit ridiculous even allowing my lap top out of my bag, but it is about time that I catch up on my blog. 

The hostel is being created out of what used to the villages school house. It is two stories and has four main class rooms and four other smaller rooms.  The classrooms have been converted into two dorms, a bar/meeting area and a dining room. It amazing to see how this place has progressed in since it’s the present South African “hippy” bought it for $17,000 (US) four years ago. 

This last week we have spent our days lugging cement one bucket at a time to the roof of this school house to build a brick wall around when will soon be a terrace complete with a brick bbq and brick planter boxes for grapes. Its hard work but its freeing. I don’t have to wear shoes or a shirt, I’ve got a great tan and at the end of the day the food is out of this world.

before

The South African creator left home at 17 and has been a traveler, a squatter, a raver and luckily for me, a chef over the next 17 years. He calls himself a hippy but it is interesting to see how his version of hippy is different from the eccentric Bay area hippies of Berkeley and Sebastopol that I am familiar with. First off, he is the most ambitious hippy I could ever imagine.  His motivation for this project is on par with that of Bill Gates. Second, we sit on the roof laying bricks listening or rather feeling trance music pump through my body. Finally, around 10 o’clock every day everything stops for a proper English tea time. Although we all smell like hippies and leaving our clothes on the shore of the river feels more like a hippy it just goes to prove a person is his place before he is his identity. A Dutch baseball player is Dutch before he is a baseball player , a South African Hippy is South African hippy is South African before he is a hippy and the girl who recently showed up is an American before she is a dental hygienist.

She is the girl who traded her steady nine to five for a ticket to Sophia and dove right into her soul search in this basic style of life. There are a few good things about her arrival. The first is that I have to floss every night. I haven’t showered in a week but I’ll be damned if I didn’t floss the last three nights in a row. The second is the two hours I got to spend unloading the four months of things that I could only relate to another American and finally the shiny new mirror that she provides to me.

a gypsy "gift"

Each time I run into another American it’s a reflection. Sometimes it’s like seeing myself in a dust window or pewter bowl and sometimes it’s a still water or freshly polished silver. The two 19 year old college guys that I spoke with in Amsterdam, the two Alabaman nurses in Prague, the Canadian (that counts in this case) college hockey player on the beach in Valencia, or in this case the freshly polished silver of a dental hygienist from New Hampshire. With each conversation I run across things I have taken for granted, things I have left behind and things I have a new appreciation for. The bricks and sun have stole my energy for the details here but sometimes these reflections are laughable; the changes being more evident than the remainder. It’s a cop-out but I will leave this to another post that I will promise and never write. Off to enjoy some silence and sunset.

More words. None are mine.

I ran around Bulgaria some more. I've been staying in a hostel that is a little more quaint. I have been busy and tired at the end of the day. Something really cool happened here yesterday. After working with just the two proprietors of the hostel for two days,  an American girls/princess who showed up here directly from Boston. Initially I unloaded an earful on her that I could not have expressed to anyone here. She too has been keeping up a blog. Her entry for today is priceless and captures the beauty and innocence of the culture/way of life/solitude shock. This is her third day in Bulgaria and first full day putting in work at the hostel. From http://workin-for-the-weekend.blogspot.com/ Enjoy: 

Dirty Splinters in my Dirty Hands

Lord have mercy...  I no longer have bank teller hands, but I now have construction-worker hands.  Re-cap of my day:
1. Woke up, and had a wicked good breakfast.
2. Spent several hours sanding a wooden rail... I can't remember the last time I had splinters in my hands.
3. Had English tea (which I think all people should adopt in to their culture).
4. Got more splinters.
5. Had lunch (I felt like I was living in the Shire with other hobbits, having first and second lunchies (lunch and tea time within a 90 min time span)
6. Picked crab apples
7. Began to pare crab apples (which they are so small, every time I tried to pare one, I ended up removing the core stem, and most of the skin on my pointer finger)
8. Switched to dish washing... which was a scam, because it was over an hour worth of dish washing...maybe like three hours worth -no lie?  And let's just put it this way, I fo'show use way more water just brushing my teeth than I did washing, lunch, tea, canning, and distilling dishes.  The sink is broken, and get this, I was wiping oil out of a pan, worried about oil clogging their septic system, and it hit me... I am in rural Bulgaria -they have no septic system.  Turns out, the 'septic pipe' drains onto their lawn.
9. Bonfire
10. Dinner
11. No shower. Hairy legs. Dirty skin about to be n my nice sheets.

Also, Bulgaria fun-fact, the reason why some of the cops drive Porsche cars is because whenever they bust anyone (drug dealers and all); if the car (which is usually stolen) isn't claimed, the police get to keep it after 5 months.

People in Holland, I am still alive. I appreciate all the care that you have extended my way.
I will put a post up this weekend. Na zdravi!

Where am I? Part II

Leg lock

The question entered, not so much as it blasted into my head. It fired through my nerves that screamed out in pain. My knee was not meant to bend this way!  After I tapped him twice on the ribs, I began to regain the sense of the rest of my body. I felt his grey pony tail on the side of my foot.  My knee was locked in between his knees. His hips were pushing into my thigh and his ankle was lodged into the bend in the front of my hip. My back was in a pool of sweat on the mats of the gym floor.

The sweat couldn’t pour out fast enough. This was somewhere in the second hour of my second session of jiu jitsu training in an old goat barn. The rock and mortar walls of the barn had been there long before the pine floor had been set down on tires to mitigate the impact of throws and takedowns. The man who was one good crank away from separating my knee was an nth level Black Belt of multiple martial art disciplines who ended up in Bulgaria after pursuing his craft all over the world. 

Stuffed peppers for lunch? Yes please.

Every night after training a tasty meal is hot and ready for us from an British ex-model. We sit down share scratch spread with a ex Royal Navy officer who rounds out this quiet expat compound in rural Bulgaria. After dinner comes cold beer and a gorgeous view to ease into the night after a day of work and training. It’s hard to believe only four hours of work a day could get me all this.  I am here due to a reference from and internet work/holiday network, but the immediate explanation only gives a weak a basis for the answer to the question.

The Bird

“You know what they say about a chicken with its head cut off,” he smiled. I looked back up at him, he continued but I didn’t hear anything. I could only see on the blood that had splattered on his glasses and cheek.  The chickens head was at his feet, the contours just visible in the fresh crimson blood.

I was glad it was over, mostly for the chicken. Ten minutes before, I had been chasing the doomed cockerel around his pen. Finally he cornered himself and I snatched him.  I held him by his legs and hanging that way, he finally settled down. “Grab him like this,” and he showed me with his thumb and index finger, “right behind the head. Hold tightly and stretch him as far as you can. Give the neck a quarter turn and jerk it sideways until you hear a ‘crack.’”

Cruel and unusual punishment would only begin to describe this bird’s demise. Chased around, and paralyzed after two attempts to severe his spinal cord, it was only over after two hacks with the hatchet. “It takes practice.” the woman would later assure me.

"Get that one. He picks on the others."

I had plenty of time to contemplate the whole event, not to mention the whole concept of raising, slaughtering and consuming meat while I plucked the bird. I sat in midday sun in the garden pulling against the grain as I was instructed. I think it was when I was pulling the feathers, still covered in half dried blood, on the front ridge of the bird’s wing, when the question came to me. 

It came first as a rumble in my stomach and then as a tightening of my throat and finally wafted around in the air with buzzing flies and the smell of chicken innards. As more feathers came off, the question subsided. Eventually the bird had more in common with the ones you see in the supermarket freezers than the one that had woken me at down that morning with his persistent call.

Conscience/ body separation was not enough ease my mind from this task. It was only when I rationalized the situation by accepting that the bird had made metaphysical change of form that I became hungry for the chicken chili at lunch. I guess it’s good that I didn’t have to gut and clean it before I ate.

Where Am I? Part I

Sunrise

I was far enough away that the sounds of the seagulls and the waves sweeping in were audible over the pumping electronic beats behind me. I was sitting next to an Indian guy who I met from a South African guy who I met because his girlfriend was the son of a Bulgarian-American who I met on the plane. The Indian was telling me something about the waves and the music that, after a night of partying, sounded pretty metaphysical. As I sat in the sand watching the sunrise over the Black Sea and listening to this guy, I took the last pull of my beer and the question drifted into my head.

It had been a great night, if you could call it that. I got off the plane 18 hours before. I met this dual citizen because we struck up a conversation after he overheard me speaking English in the Amsterdam Airport. He offered to help get me on my feet when we got to Sofia. Apparently what that means in Bulgarian is get a taxi for us to the train station, show me the best place to change currency, treat me to one of the best meals I’ve eaten in my entire life, tell me about a party on the Black Sea, set me up with a bus ticket and give me a sightseeing tour of old Communist Sofia from the eyes of a former rebellious punk teenager.

This guy is the epitome of cool. After I rode an overnight bus across the Bulgaria to Sunny Beach on the Black Sea, I arrived at 2 am. I met up with him, his daughter and her boyfriend and we partied and danced to the music of an internationally renowned Dutch DJ until the sun came up. It’s easy to put the sequence together now but at that time the question was as potent as the beats.

Ferry Corstien at Cacao Beach

Sunset

The sun behind the hills left an orange glaze on the warm evening air. I stared out over a field of sunflowers weighed down heavily and ready for harvest.  The train rumbled west and the breeze was refreshing after peeling myself off the seat after a much needed nap.

It was a long trip.

I finally had the energy to address the questions swirling in my. If I was this rested at the beginning of the day, chances are I would not be here right now. I could still be partying in Sunny Beach or driving to Istanbul with the Indian guy. As I have found, when traveling in a sleep deprived hungover stupor, luck largely outweighs reason as the explanation to for most consequences.

It was luck that walked me by the small Sunny Beach bus station the night before while searching for a cheap hotel. It was luck that woke me up at 11:34 to get out of my hotel before noon checkout. Luck got me on a bus whose last stop happened to be the Burgas train station.  Really dumb luck justified buying the train ticket two a city I had never heard of and who’s name, among other things, I could not even read thanks to the Cyrillic writing on the ticket. But most of all luck taught the lady in my train car enough Spanish for her to: help me buy tickets on the train, tell me how to meet my connecting train and allow me to use her cell phone. Her destination was even only one stop before mine on the connecting train! As the British woman I planned to and actually did end up meeting here told me last night, “Sometimes life depends on the turn of a lucky card.” Sometimes it depends on a whole deck.

Gratitude II

An Open Letter to the Blue Devils,

It was over as fast as it began, faster. After spending the summer as my blog describes, “playing, coaching and learning about baseball in the Netherlands,” faster than you can say “Play Ball!” it all came to an abrupt stop. 

I found out it was not possible to extend my 90 day European Union visa around the 90^th day of my stay. I am not exactly the most law abiding citizen, but I do not consider myself and international criminal either. At the risk of being deported, paying fines and/or a three year black list from traveling to Europe, I opted to leave. 

Obviously it was a hard decision. My team only had 3 games left and it may have been possible to stay under the radar until mid-September but after pouring over many a internet travel forum the chances of getting caught really began to outweigh the chances of the alternative. 

I left out of Schipol airport on August 18^th, 93 days but the same day three months later that I entered the country. I made it out and maybe I could have stayed, but what’s the point in looking back. For being the first time in over ten years that the club brought in an American player, we had a successful summer. The juniors learned and ton and it has been evidenced in every one of their practices and the men’s team went 6-3 in the time that I was there and will maintain their place in the 1^st division. It was too short but it was a success.

It was a great success for me too. I probably learned as much about coaching as the guys than they learned about playing and had a great time playing with the guys. I thoroughly enjoyed playing and clowning with both my teams and learned that the celebration in the club house after the game is even better than winning the game. I hope someday my junior team will get to discover that.

Thank you to everybody who made it possible for me to get there, my new Dutch family, all the people who took care of me while I was there, everybody who was willing to speak English to me, everybody who was willing to forgive me for my Crazy American ways, everybody who bought me a beer, the great bartenders of the club house, my catcher, everybody who taught me something about Meppel or Holland, the parents who drove us to games, my teammates, the grounds men for the beautiful field and club house, everybody in the club. Also thank you especially to Nanno, yes Nanno, Bert, Bert, Bert, and Peter. I am forever grateful to all of you.  I really hope is that the guys I coached learned a lot and will enjoy the game with their new knowledge and make the 90 days turn into a future of good, fun Blue Devils baseball.

Thanks so much,

De Amerikaanse

Getting It

Friday, August 12th

The birds are chirping outside. I hope that means it’s going to stop raining. There is a soft to drizzle and grey skies. It’s a nice fall day here. It’s August 12^th.This kind of rain reminds me home in fall. It’s the rain you welcome because you need it. It provides the time to look out the window, take a much needed breath and reflect. It’s especially nice when you are as hungover as I am. Last night I was at Meppeldag and this morning I learned the phrase, “'s avonds een vent, 's ochtends een vent”  From what I understand, the translation is essentially this: Drink like a man at night then act like one the next morning. Whatever, I’m just going to type this morning.

Despite my hangover my eyes are wide open. These last three weeks have been like a whole summer for me. In that time I have done more than any one summer playing baseball in the Midwest. I have been looking back through the bits and pieces in my journal trying to make sense of it all. I read them and the feeling in my chest is something between, gratitude, appreciation, and the question of how I could be so lucky. I got to spend 8 days living with people from Spain, 10 days living with people from Czech, and the better part of a summer living with people from Holland. I have gotten such a perfect taste of Europe. I don’t think I would have it any other way. 

These three peoples are very distinct and represent very different perspectives and ways. The three countries came from different language families, religious backgrounds, climates, battles, and peoples. Whereas I am tempted to speculate on why they are the way they are, I think it’s probably best that I describe them based on my experiences. 

When I left Holland for Spain, I had questions about what I was doing in Holland. I had a hard time understanding the people and the place. When I got to Spain I was overjoyed. What a change! I heard the people speaking a language I could understand. The weather was dry and warm and people were out just enjoying it. I watched them and I got it in 10 minutes.

 In the week I spent with the Spaniards at the English immersion program, I found passionate people who were very open and expressive.  It reminded me of my life in Puerto Rico. I had a fairly good understanding of these people and their open nature makes them easy to understand. I spent a week smiling, sharing, talking, laughing, eating, and dancing. I got to act naturally and it was easy.

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When I returned to Holland for a few days, I said to myself, “What the f*ck? La gente esta muy loca.” (This is a line from a popular dance song here now.) It was cold and wet again. I spent some days in my room, riding my bike to the baseball field and resting. 

When I went to Czech, as I said in my first post about Czech, I thought this place is very different. It was very different from anywhere I had ever been. I spent the first few days watching the people. I watched people watch each other. It seemed like people were always aware of each other and watching out of the corner of their eyes.  Sitting on a train is a great place to see the subtleties of non-verbal interaction. The people sat straight in their chairs and faced forward, eyes covertly observing the others. I can’t help but to think there is still a residual sense for the obligation for order from the era before. I watched them talk to each other. Their faces moved minimally as they spoke. Not understanding the language didn’t help me understand either. I thought it was hopeless.

Finally, I asked. It was the peak of my frustration. I saw a lot of pretty girls in Prague. A lot. My problem is, when our eyes met, their eyes would shoot directly to the ground or sky or just about anywhere else. I wondered what I was done wrong. Finally I just gave up trying to make sense of it and I asked a member of the sister baseball club in Prague why this was happening. He chuckled, “Maybe this is how they make you more interested.” “Oh, interesting,” I replied.  What I meant was, “This is lame.”

On the train ride home, my world turned inside out. A typically pretty Czech girl sat across the aisle and one row in front of me. I looked and she looked away. I watched without watching and then I saw everything. This description is for another post but I discovered a subtlety in the people that I previously could not have even imagined. By the end of the third day I got it.

I took my new insight and began to pay attention. The people talk with their eyes, barely. If you aren’t watching closely you won’t understand anything. If you stop making eye contact, a kick to the leg of the table, a clearing of the throat, a tap on your arm, or my favorite; batting eye lashes will bring you back in. As I write this I feel a little guilty to essentially bastardize the subtlety but for those at home, this is too good. 

So we ate, drank and talked. I was treated like a king as is the Czech tradition of treating guests. I spent a day a few days with a couple families and in their own homes they are some of the warmest people I have ever met. We ate and then I ate some more and was I offered more until finally I just had to say no. The delicious Czech beer kept flowing and the conversations broadened. Finally, I was exposed to insights to Czech and the real attitudes and real criticism of America. I love sincerity and honesty. That’s what makes the beer so delicious.

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So I returned to Meppel. I came back with a cursory understanding of the relationship between the Czechs and Dutch that has developed since the time of communism. I thereby began to understand the Dutch. When I returned it was like somebody flipped the switch and there was light on the Dutch people. I began to hear the things that go unsaid. 

On the second night back it was Donderdag Meppeldag (Thursday Meppelday). This is a real Meppel party. Live music in every square in town and the beer poured more than the rain. The people came to life and I began to get it. Two and a half months later, I began to get it. 

I am beginning to understand the narrow bounds of what is normal among the Dutch. If you don’t walk inside them, they will know and you will too.  They will continue to extent a warm welcome to a visitor as is the typically Dutch way but an outsider will remain just that until they give a little way. I am starting to play inside these lines and it’s getting much easier.

The birds aren’t chirping anymore and the clouds look like they mean business. Well, I’m back in Meppel, but for some reason it feels different. I look out of my window at the world outside but now the only thing between it and me is glass. People asked me when I came back from Spain, “Are you happy to be home?” and I always returned a vague reply about being happy to be back but this was not my “home.”

My perspective changed while waiting to claim my luggage in the Amsterdam airport. I asked my host and my Czech travel guide, “Are you happy to be home?” He paused and he replied, “I feel at home in both places.” After 60odd years living in Meppel he had not fixed himself to the notion that home is a person’s origin. The answer is staring me in the face. I look across the living room to see a little decoration that says “Home is where the Love is.”

Ge

So I am back in Meppel with a different feeling because I think I am finally getting it. I’m living in the lines and spending less time trying to figure everything out (that is never going to happen) and more time enjoying the place and its people. The care from the people is there, maybe acceptance is next.