Aside from the storm, which, like a hot potato, had been passed, and had devastated somewhere else on the map. (Not to mention watching Katrina’s miserable aftermath.) Aside from that calamity, the rest of the summer, at least for us, was bliss.
We spent our days in a leisurely slow tropical rhythm, typically chilling on the beach, soaking up sun and swimming in the ocean that was then almost hot as a jacuzzi. Otherwise we’d be home, cooking pancakes, drinking/smoking, watching movies and gameshows, lying in bed.
(From a lucrative, late summer, short online gig, I’d clocked enough cash to take it easy our last couple weeks there…)
((My wife quit her job at the hotel, too, about a month prior to us leaving after she’d seen, through a gap in the hotel manager’s office door, the hotel manager, and a couple goons, rough up a guy, badly, beating him halfway to death and then dragging him out a backdoor, throwing him into the trunk of a car and driving off.
My wife, being from Austria, had never seen much of any violence and was so freaked out that she quit the next day…))
The night before we had to leave, I was bummed, having to go, split South Beach.
My wife was bummed out too. We didn’t say much that final night, spent most of it in reflective, mournful silence. It was difficult for us both to conclude that chapter of our lives. Despite the storms and occasional craziness, we’d been quite happy, loved the warm weather and South Beach lifestyle.
The morning we left, I had a surplus of weed, a fat bag, and decided to eat it all in an omelet.
Buffalo Bangkok: Juvenile Delinquent As we headed to the airport, another hurricane was on the way, but fortunately we were scheduled to beat it, get out before it made landfall.
When we arrived at the airport, although I’d not felt much from the weed after eating it, when I stepped up to the Al-Italia front counter, to check in for the flight, the weed suddenly crept up and hit me like a ton of bricks. For a second, I completely forgot what I was doing. I was just standing there, awkwardly, not knowing what to say, with this gorgeous Italian stewardess tilting her head, raising an eyebrow, and looking at me funny. Though, after a few strange, wordless seconds, I remembered, that, oh yeah, I’m heading to Europe. It was a Hunter S. Thompson type of moment.
Looking back on it, I’m amazed they even let me on the plane.
My wife hadn’t wanted any of the omelet. So she was stone cold sober, and while tolerant of my drugged-out state, she didn’t bother to speak to me as we waited for the plane to leave.
And fuck, I was feeling the THC surge, more and more, that body buzz of edibles, and mildly hallucinating too. There were circumambient colors of everything in the airport, flashing and bursting, so bold and bright, so magnificent and beautiful. But it was also scary watching the hurricane on TV. I shuddered upon seeing video footage of it trashing a Caribbean island. I was feeling like it was a dastardly villain, the storm, the evil purple green blob on the radar; it was again an angel of gusty death, a waterborne killer creeping, thundering and charging our way, stalking us.
The Al-Italia plane called out their boarding all in Italian. But fortunately, knowing enough Spanish, I understood the boarding call and was somehow cognizant enough to rise to my feet, step us over to the queue. Once we boarded, it had to be the quickest take-off I’d ever experienced. In trying to beat that hurricane, like seconds after we sat down and buckled up, we were rolling down the runway, engines roaring, and mere minutes later, we were up in the clouds, soaring, heading off to the opposite side of the world.
I usually don’t sleep well, or at all, on flights, but I was so blasted and relieved to be out of there, having escaped the windy weather beast, that I slipped away,
Buffalo Bangkok: Juvenile Delinquent peacefully and deeply, soon after lift-off and sank into a superb slumber, the best I’ve ever had on a flight.
And when I woke up, I saw out my window to one of the most astonishing sights I’d ever laid eyes upon. The spirals and snowy white serrated tips of the French Alps…
It was incredible, arriving in Europe, seeing such a radically different landscape, the vertiginously steep Alps and verdant hills of the Austrian countryside. It was exactly how it looked in movies. In fact, even more pulchritudinous.
It struck me too, that while it was magnificently picturesque, everything seemed…
somehow to be smaller. The people, the portion sizes of food, the houses, the cars, everything was smaller than in America.
Except the beer. When we arrived in Vienna, picked up by my father-in-law and brother-in-law, we stopped for schnitzel, which was scrumptious, and I gawked at how big the beer steins were. I’d asked my wife about it, and she’d shrugged, said how it was “just a beer” and that it was normal-sized.
It was amazing how much beer the Austrians drank. Seemed like everywhere people were drinking beers, walking down the street, drinking beers, on buses, drinking beers, at parks, drinking beers. There obviously were no lame public drinking laws like in the States. But what was odd, was that aside from stout people and some beer bellies here and there, there weren’t the same amount of obese people as there were in the States.
My FIL included. A stout guy, with a belly, scruffy white beard and full head of scraggly salt and pepper hair, he was by no means obese and would down beers all day, from morning to night. My BIL too, drank beer day and night but wasn’t fat.
(In Austria, beer was the golden fluid of life, commerce, and social events. It was also incredible, the beer. This was before the craft beer boom in America, so I’d never experienced just what beer could be. It was nothing like Budweiser, the beer in Austria. It was so rich, the Austrian beer. Its complicated flavors exploding on your tongue... And there were several small breweries in Austria that didn’t export their products, you had to be there to get it. And, if you’re a beer lover, like me, you were lucky to be there and to drink such immaculate brews...)
Buffalo Bangkok: Juvenile Delinquent ((Not only were they big drinkers of beer, the Austrians were also passionate about their schnapps. Religiously so. Believing it to have divine powers, that it was an elixir for any ailment. Have a cold? Drink a shot of schnapps. Headache, stomachache, sore throat? Drink a shot of schnapps. Back ache? Shot of schnapps. Insomnia? Schnapps. Bleeding wound? Douse it with schnapps. Break your leg? Pour schnapps on it; let it seep in, heal the fracture… Schnapps, the Austrian cure for anything!))
Back to my in-laws. They were pleasant, simple folks.
My mother-in-law was a lively, boisterous busybody, a workaholic, her body perpetually in motion. If she wasn’t tending to the plants, she was cooking or cleaning or always doing something. I don’t think I ever saw her sit for more than a couple minutes.
Having grown up in the aftermath of WW2, being dirt poor for many years as a youth, she’d had an intense work ethic instilled in her from a young age. Her family had been sustenance farmers. If they didn’t produce crops, output they wouldn’t eat. It was mostly because of her drive, smarts, and entrepreneurship that their family business had been successful, and although they’d done alright financially, her drive, passion for work burned as intensely as ever…
I had a hard time communicating with my in-laws, as they didn’t speak English, and my German was minimal. But they were easygoing, and we got along well, especially my FIL and me, since we both enjoyed beer and watching whatever sport was on TV.
My BIL was a bit more of a problem. He was about the same age as me. Had a business doing electrical wiring or something. Sort of like my FIL, he was stout with a big belly and scraggly hair (though his unruly mop was sandy brown). But unlike my FIL, who was a laidback guy, my BIL was extremely aggressive, outgoing, arrogant, chauvinistic, and was constantly making snide and sexist comments about women, expecting me to laugh or join his banter. But I didn’t. I didn’t share those views or appreciate those remarks and would often just shake my head and walk away from him.
(It probably made matters worse that my BIL had lost his favorite drinking buddy… His buddy also being a horrible chauvinist, worse than him, I’d heard…
Buffalo Bangkok: Juvenile Delinquent The guy had been a cop, an abusive one, as well as a wifebeater- and he’d also beat and sexually abused his teenage daughter…) ((The curse of karma licked him, though. The guy had become incapacitated following a horrific, drunken car wreck. The man, who was tall, strong and broad-shouldered, with a hatchet face and a sharp, pronounced jaw, had become a limping, shriveled vegetable, only able to enunciate loud grunts, shrieks, and retching sounds. Cared for, ironically, by a pretty young Slovenian maid, 24/7, he’d be walked around the neighborhood, retching and whimpering, the invalid being led like a dog…))
Back to my BIL, I could usually just ignore or walk away when he got too annoying, but there were times I couldn’t escape him, like during family meals when he’d push others to drink with him and pour wine, beer or schnapps into other people’s glasses and chide them, goad them, ridicule people if they didn’t drink along with him, or if they wanted to stop, had had enough to drink.
I especially didn’t appreciate that. For me, drinking is a fun activity, for relaxation.
I have a special hate for drinking games. Those who make alcohol into a competition, force it on people. I don’t like people who force anything on others, but especially something that can make you sick, or even kill you. His behavior was not only juvenile. It was dangerous.
At least he wasn’t violent. Or we’d certainly have come to blows. When he’d try to push me to drink or talk any shit to me for not drinking as heavily as him, I’d tell him straight up “fuck you!” and walk off. And he wouldn’t respond, would just move on to harassing his next victim. It was sort of sad, really, that way of drinking, that behavior, but we all have our flaws, and that was his.
Aside from his chauvinism and obnoxious drinking, he was a good man. Worked hard to support his family, worked long hours, hustling around to a number of sites, doing some backbreaking electrical wiring installations. I admired that about him, his work ethic and how he took care of his family.
He had a wife, my sister-in-law, and two kids, both young, 7 and 10, respectively.
His wife was a spitting image of my wife, only slightly older and with much shorter hair, hers dyed blond.
Buffalo Bangkok: Juvenile Delinquent She was a stay-at-home mom, and they lived in a house next door to ours. I must admit I’d taken a liking to her, my SIL, as she, like my wife, was fetching. She’d make a habit of flaunting her looks by jumping into the outdoor jacuzzi in her yard, wearing a skimpy bikini, a couple times waving and smiling at me seductively as she sat in the steamy, bubbly waters.
She was consistently flirty with me, really, from our first meeting. Her persistent, silky little touches to my arm always seeming prolonged. And any joke I’d tell her caused her to laugh like I was a comedian. I was getting the vibes, undeniably.
(I could see her being sexually frustrated since her husband was more interested in drinking beer during his free time than anything else… And I was finding that adultery was a national sport in Austria, tales of it in gossip, the media, books, everywhere…)
Besides my SIL’s looks and flirtatiousness, what was nice about her too was that she only spoke German with me. Whereas many other people in our neighborhood, as well as my wife, would only speak English with me, my SIL, although she could speak English, refused to speak English with me, out of an altruistic desire for me to learn the German language. It was cool of her. She was a lovely lady, inside and out.
My in-laws, as mentioned, were lovely folks too. It was mighty kind of them to allow us to stay with them. We returned their generosity by helping pay a share of the utilities, doing housework for them. My wife joined in the cleaning and cooking, looking after her sister’s kids, and I was often outside chopping wood for the fireplace, mowing the lawn, walking the dogs, or lifting, fixing whatever had to be lifted or fixed…
They’d done well for themselves, my in-laws; had been in the plant growing and maintenance business their whole lives, and had built, literally, my FIL, MIL, workers doing the construction, a beautiful, large house outside of Graz, in the south of Austria. The dark brown, wooden house was constructed in the traditional Austrian style of architecture, with a triangle roof and spacious porches, balconies running from one side of the house to the other, and these massive panoramic windows featuring breathtaking views of the Alps.
Buffalo Bangkok: Juvenile Delinquent (While the house was modern and stylish, it kept a certain countryside décor, since there’d usually be freshly shot and plucked pheasant, skinned deer hanging from the front porch- a stark contrast to the potted flowers and plants…) ((Every month, in the village, there were a few “Jägertag,” a “Hunter’s Day,”
where everyone was forbidden from leaving their homes, except hunters, the townsfolk bearing rifles, who’d go out shooting and slaughtering pheasant, deer…))
Back to the house. On the side of their house was an addition, with a kitchen, living room, fireplace, and bedroom, bathroom, and that’s where my wife and I were to live for the time being upon first arriving in the country.
Being young, we didn’t have much of a plan, other than I wanted to work online, and work for their business and grow marijuana, sell it legally.
She started looking for jobs but wasn’t finding much, so she began working for her family’s plant nursery, along with me.
It was tough work at the plant nursery. I began growing marijuana but was finding it difficult to sell enough plants to make much profit. Most people there could grow their own, and though I’d began experimenting with growing and breeding different strains, it was going to take time to get the business off the ground.
Plus, there were a ton of far more sophisticated growers in Holland to compete with. It wasn’t going to be easy, but I was plodding along, studying marijuana science, botany. I designed a webpage for the plant nursery too, which I maintained, and I helped the business expand digitally, and continued doing my own side projects, gigs, work online. I’d also taken up a little day trading, attempting to grow my meager savings at a rate higher than the bank’s paltry interest rates…
In addition, I worked on landscaping projects, something I’d never done prior to that. I did everything from digging holes, uprooting trees, planting plants. It was difficult, strenuous work. I’d never done manual labor and working outside in the bitter cold of the Austrian winter, at the foot of the Alps, it wasn’t easy.
But I relished the challenge. Enjoyed the exercise and the fresh air. As well as the camaraderie, working with a diverse group of coworkers, at the company, many
Buffalo Bangkok: Juvenile Delinquent of whom were migrant workers from Slovenia, Poland, and Serbia. The Slovenian guys I particularly liked. They were chill, friendly, always drinking beer- while working- and since they spoke German as a second language, it was easier for me to understand their imperfect accents and grammar, slower speed, pace of speech. I learned much of the German I did from talking with them. Even picked up a slight Slovenian accent, like them, with my German!
(I eventually picked up a great deal of German, for a time, speaking more German on a daily basis than I did English. Though my German grammar was always abysmal. I could never remember the “der, die, das,” which gender the nouns took, the datives, et cetera. My syntax was horrible, too, but I was communicating fluently.)
Another person I practiced my German with, and definitely my favorite coworker I had, was a neighbor of my wife’s, and her former classmate, a girl named Gertrud.