It can’t all be international can it? Despite the dumpster fire that is the current state of things here in the good old US&A, there’s a few great places worth visiting, and my bicycle touring life keeps me visiting them. I had the chance to explore a new corner of American urban society in 2023 down in Savannah. And I loved it. A truly remarkable pocket of culture and history right here in the lower 48, even if much of it is built on racism and genocide.
My end of year top top travel entries are truly subpar writing specimens when compared to my long bike ride writings. But don’t take my word for it, take my words for it and keep my daily entry from a day off in Savannah this past April.
My 4 days in Paris constitute the most quintessential tourist vacating I have ever done. After more than a decade of coercion, persuasion and downright threatening, I convince my family to join me somewhere not on a resort. My nephew, having spent the summer semester in Valencia Spain, joins my moms and my sis and me in the French capital and we do it big. An apartment steps from the Eiffel Tower sets the stage for a lot of walking — personally I ambulate no less than 10 miles per day each day I’m here. We do all the typical sightseeing shit. It’s clear our family DNA has predisposed us to enjoying the simplest of activities. We walk. We eat. We drink. We take photos. I thought I was the simple one, yet these motherfuckers are cool with the same basics. We don’t even make plans, though eventually it rains one day and we buy tickets to the Louvre. I don’t like museums much, they’re usually just buildings full of stolen artifacts and art. Remnants of colonial times when Western Europe plundered the rest of the world for its culture. Now the US & A plunders the entire world with its culture. Go figure. You know what they call a Quarter Pounder in France? If Vincent never tells Jules, then I’d never know — and I still don’t care. But it’s telling that this motherfucker would go all the way to Paris, a — if not the — gastronomical capital of the world and eat at a fucking McDonalds. Plundered.
The Louvre is pretty amaze balls though. I get lost on the same floor for a good hour before figuring out how to maneuver the massive complex. I mock the Mona Lisa chasers and instead admire the wondrous painting on the opposite wall of that room. I see high school kids take naps everywhere, that’s fun. I like naps. I like art. I’d be ok if humanity all agreed on just one single place to display looted artifacts as a testimonial to human life existing on earth. This place clearly would be that. Obviously. Obvi. Ob.
All the Paris shit. We hit Arcs. We cruise the Seine. We visit the burnt-out Notre Dame. We walk boulevards. I show my ass at the Wall of Love. I celebrate the usage of the guillotine on the ruling class. We eat French cuisine and a mouse comes out to greet us. For really real. That happens. Merci.
Getting layovered is better than getting laid. If I do it right. The layover, dumb ass. Me and the neph break away from our mothers on a Saturday morning in Sweden — finally grown up; final destination: the Atlantic coast of Norway, Bergen to be precise. That’s a lotta punctuation. Are you even living if you don’t use the phrase “final destination” right before flying? All that said, right said Fred, this flight is two flights. On Finnish air. Don’t call me done, til I’m Finnish. A sweet little treat of an 11 hour layover here in Helsinki. First time caller, long time listener. I hear good things. Independent since only 1917 and yet — the HAPPIEST NATION ON EARTH. I don’t know how they measure it but I measure happy by walking around and witnessing the smiles and quality of life. Food. Transit. Facilities. Fun. Bonus is that’s basically a thrift store Mecca here. True happiness is renewable clothing at discount prices. It’s all here. I did this to myself on purpose. This layover. Better than getting laid. We hit the second hand shops. We hit this Baltic Sea day spa club. Cold water. Warm water. Sauna. Snacks. We hit the downtown food market and munch on fresh seafood. I’m happy.
Almost daily, people tell me go to hell, now I can reply that I’ve been to Helsinki. And back. For shits and giggle, I suppose. A fun little comeback. Nation number 46 at this moment of my lifetime. Same as the amount of times I have travelled around the sun. Finns can see Russia from their house. This layover didn’t need to happen. Plenty of direct flights existed. I wanted this. Like how I hit Belgrade last year. Or a plethora of other places. Gimme 5 or 6 good hours in a city, maybe like 10 hours with airport transit time. I will get it in. I am getting it in. Get. Getting. Got. Gotten. I need to coin a phrase for all this. Some day.
“A man on foot, on horseback or on a bicycle will see more, feel more, enjoy more in one mile than the motorized tourists can in a hundred miles. Better to idle through one park in two weeks than try to race through a dozen in the same amount of time. Those who are familiar with both modes of travel know from experience that this is true; the rest have only to make the experiment to discover the same truth for themselves.”
Hoping for a Tail Wind 