Neophyte

By Fred K. Lee

Remember when a care-free trip through eight European countries didnt nesessitate taking a loan out on your parents? I do, so come along with me and relive some of those days. I had a lot of fun writing this book so if any of you other old farts out there would like to go back in time for a few hours, now is your chance!

I spent three weeks travelling in Europe in each of the years 1973, 1974 and 1976. Ive taken what I think are the most adventurous and humourous parts of the lot and written it down. All names used are actual people who dont need to be protected; and all cities bare my footprints, and as well as many pleasant recollections, especially of London, I have pictures and souvenirs to prove it ....a bag full of foreign coins, a knife from the Kabul Student Hotel in Amsterdam, an ashtray from the Hotellet Absolom in Copenhagen, a towel from the Gaudi in Barcelona....

Although this book is a tad racy for children, it is far from obscene; however, it is not one of Grimms fairy tales. The language is salty and an anal retentive person would certainly consider some parts lewd and lacivious; I think they are funny! The folks at The Christian Science Monitor or the Pope would probably not endorse this effort. And if youre looking for writing like Hemmingways, this aint it - thank God. After having been forced to plod through his The Old Man And The Sea in high school and his gloryifing the cruelty of the running of the bulls in Pamplona, I think he sucked worse than a Shop-Vac! I prefer my own prose.

I am not a fan of todays political correctness garbage; so, if anyone wants to take the trouble of carefully going through this book, Im sure youll find something to offend everyone. I make no apologies for this!

Many thanks to the people who encouraged me along the way. To my detractors, PHUT_T_T_T! How many books have you had published?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 3, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453592038

Book preview

Copyright © 2010 by Fred K. Lee.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010914849

ISBN: Hardcover    978-1-4535-9202-1

ISBN: Softcover    978-1-4535-9201-4

ISBN: Ebook    978-1-4535-9203-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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DEDICATION

This book is fondly in remembrance of my parents and my sister.

CONTENTS

PART I

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

PART II

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Epilogue

PART I

Do you yearn for the good old days when prices were reasonable and a simple room with a bed and sink didn’t cost you your first-born child? When an English pound was equivalent to a dollar eighty-six, a Dutch guilder was thirty-six cents, a Spanish peseta was one-and-a half cents, a German deuschmark hovered around the fifty cent mark, a French franc was a quarter and a Danish kroner was eighteen cents! When governments didn’t allow inflation to run hogwild? Before the greedy Arabs and their cronies caused the prices to rise right before your very eyes? Then read on. Indulge yourself in a little nostalgia and come join me on an early seventies romp through Europe.

CHAPTER ONE

Looking out through the little round hole that is laughingly referred to as a window, it appeared to be cold enough to freeze the balls off a tempered steel monkey; not to mention it being darker than a black cat’s ass in a coal mine at midnight. But then, when one is four miles above the earth at midnight, I guess it’s supposed to be dark and cold—moon beams sometimes shed a little light on the subject but they ain’t much for warmth.

It was comfortablly warm inside the wide-bodied 747, however; boring, but comfortable. At least, as comfortable as one can be in the economy section, where the goddamned narrow seats are so close to the ones in front of you that not even a short midget could stretch his legs. It was about two hours after we’d taken off from Montreal International Airport in Dorval (before the government, in its infinite wisdom, decreed that all international flights had to fly out of Mirabel Airport—subtitled Trudeau’s Folly because the multi-million dollar monstrosity was built during the reign of King Pierre. The overly-large complex is more than thirty miles from the city, in the middle of nowhere, with no connecting mass transportation system. Thousands of acres of rich farmland were expropriated for the project, causing all kind of bitterness between the government and farmers: it was ill-planned, resulting in all kinds of problems that tripled the original esitmate. It sucks over fifty million dollars per year from the Canadian taxpayers and it richly deserves its official symbol of a white elephant. At least that shows that some asshole, somewhere in Ottawa has a sense of humour; I’d laugh if it wasn’t so sad) and the big bird was cruising somewhere over the Gulf of St Lawrence. At least, that’s what the pilot announced of the public address system; and since this was my first opportunity to look down on anything from thirty thousand feet, I fought my way over a three-hundred-pound amazon to stick my nose right up against the window.

Geezus, what a waste of time! Between the time of day, the height and the mist, I couldn’t see a damned thing; and neither could any of the other passengers who’d been suckered into looking.

It was the first time I’d ever been up in an airplane—even when I’d smoked those funny cigarettes I hadn’t been this high—and I took to it like a bear to honey; which was just as well because there ain’t no way I could have gotten off that plane for another five hours! I enjoyed the take-off and later, the landing, but once the plane was in the air, the ride was more boring than riding a bus. On a bus, at least you can look out the window and see a tree or a person once-in-awhile, but from four miles up, even on a clear day, forget it! I mean, the pretty flight attendants (of which any significant touching is a definite no-no) could only hold my attention for so long. We did fly through some rough weather that bounced the plane around a bit and which I, with my ass-backwards sense of excitement, thought was stimulating. However, judging from the number of barf bags in use in the vicinity, I guessed I was in the minority.

It takes approximately six hours’ flying time from Montreal to London; I’d boarded the plane at eight o’clock but we didn’t take off until nine because of some foul-up (not enough fuel, the pilot said—better too much than not enough, I always say, especially when not enough means you might have to land in the English Channel), and after spending a sleepless night sandwiched between two fat broads with weak kidneys, I plodded into the arrivals lounge at Heathrow sometime between nine and ten AM (London time) the following morning.A couple of other jumbo jets had landed just before ours and the place was packed with fat women yelling at their kids, men with hangovers, young bearded people with everything but the kitchen sink on their backs, several people of undetermined sex, and guys like me, who just wanted to get the hell out of there and into a hot shower—there ain’t nothing like sleeping in one’s clothes to make one feel like a lice—and crab-infested old man. However, one of the officers noticed my passport and, since Canada is a Commonwealth nation, he took me to the local arrivals, where the line-up was considerably shorter. The immigrations officers there took a quick glance at my passport and waved me on my way.

This was the first of several incidents illustrating the value, in England as well as on the Continent, of a Canadian passport. I sometimes felt a little guilty for being given precedence over others who had been waiting in lines longer than me but I gritted my teeth and bore the pain like a good little soldier. A word of caution, however: because a Canadian passport is held in such high esteem throughout the world, it is the most sought after by thieves. It can bring a fortune on the black market. Also, if it is lost or stolen, you may have a helluva wait before the Canadian Embassy—the staff having been bitten many times every summer by unscrupulous quick buck artists or some doper who has blown all his money—are satisified that you didn’t sell it. So guard it well.

Weeks before leaving Montreal, I’d squandered four bucks on a well-known travel guide telling one how to eat, sleep and be entertained in various European cities on five dollars per day or less. However, once there, I quickly realised that nine-tenths of the thing was pure bullshit! One might possibly exist in such countries as Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Belgium and France on five dollars per day—but only if one eats less than a hummingbird, sleeps on a park bench (that costs eighty centimes in France) and regards long window-shopping tours as entertainment. Prices are comparatively inexpensive in countries such as Czechoslovakia, Hungry, Turkey, Poland and a few other places; but travelling there can be a hassle because of all the red tape involved. Also, the thought that you could be thrown into jail and forgotten about at the whim of some little martinet with a napoleanic complex takes a lot of the fun out of roaming around. Anyhow, being tenderfoot at overseas travel, I religiously carried the two-pound book around Europe with me—just in case. One piece of accurate information that I got from the guide, however, was how to get from Heathrow to central London by bus and the Underground. It took a bit longer but it sure as hell was a lot cheaper than taking a taxi.

Sometime around noon, I emerged from the bowels of the Earth and pushed and prodded my way through the swarming mass of humanity in the Liverpool Street train station, where I went to buy my ticket to my next destination. I bought a one-way, second-class ticket to Copenhagen, Denmark, on the boat-train(it should be called train-boat because you take the train first). The trip would take nine hours, including the six-hour Channel crossing. I didn’t feel much like shelling out an extra ten bucks for a bunk for the overnight crossing but the clerk said I could reserve a reclining seat instead for only seventy-five pence, about one dollar, extra, so I jumped at the offer. What did I know? He also said that I could make the trip on any day, that my ticket was good for up to one year.

While I was in the complex I spotted a booth operated by the British Tourist Authority so I went over and picked up a list of youth hotels and a map of Greater London. Youth hotels are mostly dormitory-type accomodation but that was fine with me. All I needed was a place to lay my head, a hot shower and someplace to store my bag; and when I found out that youth hotels charged less than half the rate of the regular hotels, there was no question of which path I’d take. Technically, youth hotels are for students only but most will rent to the general public.

The first place I called on the list turned out to be a hotel for divinity students—thank God I found that out in time and told them that it was against my principals as an athiest to stay there. The second place was on Gray’s Inn Road, in the King’s Cross district. The high voice at the other end of the wire gave me minimal directions for the Underground and told me to hurry on over because he only had a few vacancies left.

I hoped that I’d heard the directions right because my ears were still screwed up from the change in air pressure I’d undergone when the plane landed. The stewardess had offered me some gum to equalize the pressure but I’d refused it—bad enough that my ears were hurting without sticking gum in them too.

Jesus H. Ke-e-rist! What a joint that place was. There were four cots in a room that wasn’t big enough for two—and three of them were occupied by people who looked like they’d just gotten off the boat—a garbage scow, by the smell. I guessed that they were Indian or Pakistani, like the manager.

The so-called sheets on the rump-sprung cot were torn and faded and looked like they hadn’t seen the inside of a washer in years. The rag that masqueraded as a rug had more holes in it that a buckshot safe and the one shower stall in the bathroom(which evidently wasn’t used enough) had only tepid water. Still, it was dirt cheap (pun intended) compared to other advertisements I’d seen and I didn’t intend to spend much time there anyway. Besides, I’d foolishly paid my money before I’d seen the accomodations (a definite no-no in student hotels, and even some regular hotels) and if I’d refused to stay there after that, the only two chances I’d have had of getting my money back would have been fat and no.

However, I couldn’t help wishing I’d gone to the divinity place instead, even if it would have driven me up the walls. Better to sit through a couple of hours of listening to the scriptures than to be exposed to more bacteria than there are in a hospital isolation ward.

A quick shower and some clean clothes did wonders. I was feeling almost human again as I went out to take the Underground to the place I’d heard so much talk about, the place that draws tourists to London like a magnet. It took me an hour to make the ten-minute trip because I had to change trains and, naturally, I got lost. Most people would have gotten lost in those catacombs, I dare say; it’s like a goddam maze down there, with corridors shooting off every which way—and on three different levels!

The immediate area of Picadilly Circus made the King’s Cross district look luxurious by comparison. It was almost as bad as Times Square on a crowded summer’s day at the end of a week-long garbage strike. However, at the time, I thought it was all too facinating. At first, I just stood in the doorway of an unoccupied building and watched the parade of people scurrying back and forth. Every human category was represented; and some that I couldn’t categorize—pretty girls with the bra-less bouncing titties, dirty shoeless people with blank, vacant stares, staid Britishers in their pin-striped suits carrying their brollies and newspapers tucked tightly under their arms; and dozens of other shapes and sizes that appeared to be neither fish nor fowl.

Later, after staring pop-eyed at the wares in a porno shop, I went into a tobacconist’s for some cigarettes; and as I paused to light up, I noticed a bulletin board hanging near the door with several advertisements attached. The ads offered the services of all sorts of language instructors—English, Greek, French etc. Now, I wasn’t especially high on the intelligence scale but I suspected that these instructors weren’t on the up and up—especially since they all gave their appearances, measurements and other intimate information rather than their teaching credentials.

Well, for the past eighteen months I’d cleaned toilets, mopped floors and replastered walls in a former funeral parlor in a slum section of Montreal. The place had been converted to a recreational center for underpriviliged kids. My charges, the little shits, had all the civility of a herd of buffalo, and they were almost as destructive. The director of the place considered it a great accomplishment when we finally succeeded in teaching them to use the bathroom instead of just pissing in a corner somewhere in the cavernous building. If I’d been allowed to swat them with my mop they’d have caught on a lot faster, but I don’t suppose the liberal, progressive management would have approved of that. Anyhow, the little wrecking machines had very nearly driven me around the bend while I saved for this vacation, and after all that, I figured that I owed it to myself not to pass up anything that sounded as intriguing as this.

CHAPTER TWO

I chose the English instructor, mostly because her address was just around the corner(the tabacconist said); but also, just on the outside chance that the ad was ligit, I wanted to be able to speak the language. And so it was with some trepidation that I climbed the stairs to a building that should have been condemned, and knocked . . . I was about to knock again when she opened the door and fixed me with a withering stare that made me feel like something the cat had dragged in.

Hi there, I saw your ad in the shop around the corner and I’d like to buy some of your time. My name’s Fred, I stammered.

She was a striking blonde with sleek lines and an aura of class; she was built better than anything that ever came out of Detroit, I mused. She certainly was everything the ad had said, and more. I knew now what she was but I wondered if I was going to be able to afford the lesson. However, over a cup of tea in her comfortable bed-sitter(I later learned that this was a rarely-afforded privilige), we negotiated a settlement.

We settled on ten pounds (about 14 dollars) and she told me to get undressed and lie down while she went behind a screen to get ready.

It took me less than thirty seconds to get out of my clothes(of course, if I’d taken the time to unbutton my shirt first instead of just ripping it open, it would have taken me longer) and flop down on the snowy, white-sheeted bed. Long trips always make me horny as a goat and I began to fantasize about what it was going to be like with this nubile lovely of the golden, ass-length hair. That’s when I happened to look up at the ceiling. Up there, bigger than life, was this smooth-skinned albino ape-like creature with a ruddy big hard-on staring at me! Son-of-a-bitch! It’s a good thing that I didn’t have a heart condition or I would have bought the farm right there. There was a goddam mirror up there. I’d heard about these things before but this was the first time I’d ever actually seen one. But if seeing myself naked on the ceiling made my heart flutter, what I saw next damn near made it jump out through my throat. While I’d been admiring myself, Blondie had come out from behind the screen and stood at the foot of the bed looking down at me; she was dressed to kill—literally! She’d piled her shimmering hair on top of her head in a severe bun. She had on a black teddy and wore knee-length black vinyl boots with stiletto heels. A dog collar and fish net stockings completed her outfit. I was beside myself with wild-eyed, lip-drooling lust at that moment; but what I wanted more than anything else right then was to have BLONDIE beside me, and I lunged for her.