The Graz is Always Greener

"Everyone disappears, no matter who loves them.”

Around this time, Sara was fighting some flu symptoms. There's a lot of go go go on these trips, and rubbing on surfaces on public transportation and different pollen and radical changes in temperature.

I can only handle it, because I use the British colonial exit-strategy and keep all of my diseases fighting one another. Until they completely eradicate one another, they'll be damned if one gets the upper hand and the honor of getting me sick. 

But she is a healthy person, so it's normal, and she plans ahead and packs medicine. Like, a whole mini-pharmacy of ibuprofen and anti-radiation pills and mosquito netting and a flak jacket. It put the three-year old unwrapped Ricola lozenge I found in a pouch of my backpack to shame. 

This comes into play a little, because we found ourselves sniffling on the streets of Trieste with her meds on a luggage rack back in the bahnhof. 

But why were we there?

The original plan, of course, had been to fly from Berlin to Ljubljana and back, branching out with day-trips, but when this proved unsuitable (expensive, weird schedule), we worked out the whole Prague-stop 14-hour bus-push. Now it was time to head back, and we wanted to break the 14 hours up into three days instead of two. 

So, with a golden compass and an aluminum astrolabe, we worked out a series of local trips to Trieste, a city called Graz in Austria, and back to Prague, with the goal of making it to Gorlitz for Day the Last. 

Ambitious! But we thought we had the stuff to make it happen. The trip to Trieste involved entwining our pale fish fingers with rosy-fingered dawn's and high-wiring it down Tetyana's bannister-less wooden spiral. Made it to the quiet, quiet seaside bus stop with no problem. 

Later Tetyana would say of us:  

"Very nice and great guest. They was calm and good communication all in superlatives."

A lot less drama here. The bus pulled up with zero mystery. We got on and chugged a backward farewell to the Port of Piran. A few blinks later, we were in Koper, a ghostly town where we were to make our Trieste Transfer. 

Here there was some ambiguity, but we drowned it in coffee. The sugar packets had playing cards on them. She outdrew my two of diamonds with... well, everything beats that. We positioned ourselves in all kinds of ways to intercept the bus should it choose to dodge us. A fellow traveler from Toronto waited with us. Her app had lied to her about an approaching bus. Would ours?

Ours proved true! A big old, green Flixbus came whirring up. Take us to Trieste, my good man. But the driver said "nope." Noper in Koper! But you must. Sorry, he said, you have to buy tickets online. His bus had a wifi signal, so I went through the motions, and he was like, "Alas, you get locked out ten minutes before the bus leaves, and this bus leaves in seven minutes." I was like, "Is there something I have in my pocket that would be of better use in your hand?"

And he was like, "All aboard!" 

That corrupt old rummy let the three of us ride for just five Euros each. Cash. My backup plan was to get him to gamble the bus in a game of "Highest Ranking Sugar Packet" 

So, Trieste was next (short ride!). I gave the guy his bill, we dumped our bags at the bagdump and went out for a trip around Italy's best-kept secret. And soon we were far from the station, eating croissants and marmalade by a canal, when the flu shudders started. 

It was Sunday, as the swinging and the ringing of the bells, bells, bells, Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells of the molten-golden notes of the bells told us. So the "drugstores near me" were all closed. 

We went for a wander and found a little cigarette store. Dude popped up from behind the counter like a mechanical Pulcinella and spoke zero English. We got as far as him trying to sell us kleenex, before I channeled my best commedia dell'arte impression and mimed out "the lady, she sick. The lady, she nose, she head, they no superlative."  He got it and mimed back: "Steer ye widdershins, mate, and keep your eyes keen for the sign of the green cross." 

A block later, we were in the pharmacy. 

When Jen was sick on the UK trip, we discovered it was illegal to sell sleeping pills over the counter, and none of the cold medicine had sleeping powers. But here... it was the opposite. Every pill is sprinkled with the Sandman's dust before they put it on the shelf. The aspirin is like a hit from an opium pipe, the band-aids drip with morphine, and the cold medicine is a boxing glove on a spring that knocks you the fuck out. 

Not so hot when you want to see an Italian resort-town that James Joyce used to jerk off in, but... any pill in a port, so... down the hatch and we were on borrowed time. Speeding through the plazas! Quick-march past the fountains! We lingered only for me to photograph a marvelously preserved Roman theater. Broken columns were arranged just so.  

Then back, back, back to the bahnhof for some private dozing, a place safe to be on The Drowse. We positioned ourselves in front of an enormous collage of underwear packages. Italy!

The station there was set up with minimal signage and strange unmarked red doors that seemed as likely to have slavering gazelles behind them as buses, but we solved the Riddle of the Crimson Portals and were soon on our way Grazward. 

Finished Suffled When it Gush on the way. Third book down! The first was a travelogue, the second was political history, and this was a political history travelogue. I vowed to make the next one fiction. God bless long bus trips. 

After an uneventful four hours or so, we were in Austria. There was a national election this day, but we were completely oblivious to it. We saw election posters everywhere but thought they were advertisements for a bank. Apparently some super-young anti-immigrant dude won. Guess it's cool we sneaked in under the wire. 

Our hosts here were aggressively fit. Yoga martial-arts bodies. Nice people, and I felt guilty that I'd asked them where we could find the best Wienerschnitzel in the neighborhood when I saw their vegan buttons and slogans on the walls.  

The place they steered us to was truly memorable, however. A block from their home. The featured menu item was "The Burning Gallows," a tall iron structure brought to your table featuring three pork chops dangling from hooks.

These chops were then doused in brandy and set on fire. You got to watch them swing and burn while you dipped fried potatoes into mustard. Both were in tiny bowls at the base of the gallows.

This wasn't a tourist place or a theme restaurant, just a normal, Austrian corner dinner place. The menu had gluten-free options. These included The Burning Gallows.

I had the pumpkin-seed crusted Wienerschnitzel, the lady had the wurst.

And because of timing...that was Graz. The second-largest city in Austria was just a meal and a sleepover for us. We didn't even need to break out the anti-radiation pills.

In the morning, Sara felt like a million koruna and SHE got the coffee. I felt like I'd slipped the noose on the burning gallows! Plenty of time to catch the train to Prague.