I’m in the train. It’s 9 pm, Wed, 11 Oct 06

So I heard about these really cool areas of northern Sweden and Norway. Cool, right? There’s this 20-some-odd hour long train ride…you leave Stockholm at 5 pm and arrive at like 2 pm the next day. No problem, right? It’s one of those standard six-person rooms. That’s no worse than I’ve stayed in before on this trip.

So I get in the car and there’s a couple of people here as well. Come to find out there are five of us total: a couple in their mid 30’s and a mom with her son. The latter two speak very little English, but I suspect nothing.

So I’m talking with the Swedish couple. They’re not bf/gf, and are traveling to Norway to paint houses (lots of the red paint there comes from cod livers or cow blood, btw). The guy and I start talking and I hook up my portable speaker to the girl’s iPod so we have some tunes, he breaks out some OJ, then brandishes this monsterous bottle of vodka and offers some. I think, sounds great. So we’re talking and listening to music and drinking a little bit. Just another run of the mill traveling moment with some good people. Right? Come, very quickly, to find out that he’s a fighter. A street fighter. Apparently, that’s someone who goes out looking for fights to get into. I guess in the streets or a bar or wherever. It’s about then that I notice scars covering about every square cm of his uncovered body. Perfect, I’ve finally met my complete polar opposite. He tells me that he and a bunch of friends went to Carnival in Brazil, just looking for fights, but were disappointed by what they found. The’d heard how rough the place can be, but apparently, it didn’t live up. Ok, so that’s the Norwegian guy, in a nutshell.

We finish the one drink and he pours himself another. We haven’t made a dent in the reservoir of rubbing alcohol called vodka, and he’s already talking about how he’s getting ready to finish the Finish spirits before sleep.

By that time, the other two are in the car as well. Turns out they’re from Iraq. I’m thinking that’s ok…at first.

Well, I’m not Anderson Cooper, but I did see the BBC news from last night about how 4 out of 5 Iraqis think we’re doing more harm than good in Iraq and how attacks against the US in Iraq are supposed to double by next year.

Anyway, the now drunk street fighter is talking to them,

-so, where are you two from
>iraq
-did you know that he’s [pointing at me] from the USA?
>where?!
-yeah, he’s American. We all going to be ok in this car together?
>huh? [she understands but speaks poor english and is incredulous]
-he’s [still pointing, but shaking his hand a bit now] from america. Isn’t that funny?
> [nothing. She and I look at each other, then I at her son. He never moves his gaze off the floor]

Then street fighter looks at me as though there’s no one else in the room and warns me not to sleep and tells how he always sleeps with one eye open. Then he starts summarizing a movie in which there is a similar situation on a train where it culminates in a blood bath.

It’s getting a little weird in here, and street fighter is drinking like it’s Finish water, not 50-proof toilet cleaner. No problem, right? He’ll just pass out and leave everyone in the trauma-soup he’s whipped up; so thick we could have spooned it right out of the air.

Not just yet. He keeps drinking and elbowing me, asking me if I remember the movie he’s drunkly describing and telling how bad it is and it hits me….his breath. Not too bad at first, but after about 20 minutes I’ve got a migraine worthy of a Phineas Gage style frontal lobotomy.

Every time he elbows me, I think about him telling me that sky diving and bungee jumping just aren’t enough challenge; nothing like the rush of fighting someone who has the ability at each juncture to change the outcome of the event.

So I’m thinking back to psych 101. AHA! Ignore him and the undesired behavior will go away most quickly. So I start writing this entry in my phone…and wouldn’t you know, he starts talking to his female friend again and but for the occasional “USA” and “Iraq”, I have no idea what they’re talking about. Then he crawls up to his top bunk (I thought for sure he was going to fall the full 9 feet and crush both my outstretched legs) and proceded to be quiet… Until…

So my guitar case, stowed on the top shelf, only saw a dribble. The bunk he was on got a few silver dollar sized puddles. But the real zone of destruction, that was the train hallway. He powered out at least four, 3-foot diameter vodka-OJ stomach-acid puddles before reaching the bathroom. I mean he was bouncing off the walls the whole stretch, trying to walk straight, vomit and not vomit all at the same time. Of course, I raced out behind him with my camera….seeing just the perfect cherry atop the blog-entry sundae. I’ll post it soon. Ah, the look on the old guy’s face as he peered out his cabin thinking he’d find a baby elephant just escaped from the circus car we surely have in tow…

Great.
I go back to the first-class car and tell the lady in charge what’s happened. They booted him off the train…now I’m writing from another cabin…but the oddest part…

When asking for a new room, I told the lady (3 times before she understood) that I didn’t feel comfortable riding with the man and his mother from Iraq. Not because they were from Iraq, as much as for the big deal our friend with the empty stomach had made of it. I told the lady that I didn’t feel comfortable sleeping in the same room because our countries are at war with each other.. Boy did I feel small. That was elucidating for me. We’re at war. I don’t think the impact of the war is realized by the majority of us, or at least I certainly never realized it in this capacity or to this extent. The man wouldn’t look me in the eyes. Not once in four hours. I can’t blame him.

My thumbs are numb from typing. Hopefully my next entry will be about some stupid snow-covered mountain that I think is so sick, or about how I bit my tongue again or about how Finland has the best falafel or…. or something.

I’m in the train. It’s 10:47 pm, Wed, 11 Oct 06