Okay, so, as much as i want to nail down and post up another Quality Question, I have a travel tale that took place in the last 24 hours that MUST be told.

Right now i’m coolen’, yes coolen’, in London where it feels like the government has the AC on full freakin’ blast. After Split, Rome, Florence, and Paris being so conducive to my swamp-style-sweatiness, we’ve just dropped a cool 20 degrees and dayyyum’, i can diggg it!! (so asked the Beatles)

Paris. Sunday night. Eiffel Tower. World Cup. Public viewing. (50,000 people?) Oh shit! Sumthin’s bound to go down, but i didn’t expect it to be Edgard…

After an awesome Friday and Saturday night spent vibing with Ardag “The Sexy Armenian”, we split ways and ventured out on our own to go check out the big game at the Eiffel Tower. Edgard, in true psycho soccer fanatic style, decided that he wanted to be as close to the screen as possible, so my dude decides to go STAND, right next to the front lines by the fence, for the ENTIRE duration of the game (over 2 freakin’ hours, you gotta be kidddden me!). I let him know i’d be sitting softly on the grass in a more serene setting and peeping the playas’ from the green. That’s the last i saw of Edgard, until he came stumbling up to me at the train station, 3 hours later.

Check this out: about 2 hours after we split ways, some dudes decided that JUST watching the biggest game in 4 years wasn’t enough action for them. SO, dudes ran up to, and climbed up on this fence, in “Vega from Street Fighter style”, and started shaking and ripping it down. Out come the FLARE GUNS: shooting, busting, banging, blasting, bucking shots of red smoke. POP, POP, POP, POP, POP…. Maybe there were 8 or so, THOUSAND, people in our immediate area, so an ever so slight, simple, small, tiny, itsy-bitsy, FLIGHT or FIGHT response was triggered in just about, all of us.

Okay so i’m playing it cool because i’m like 35 rows back (and i’m me), but unbeknown to my later to be described psychic abilities, Edgard was in ROW ONE (figuratively speaking) of the drama.  With keen Wu-Tang style intuition, i smoothly decided that staying put right there was the best decision to be made. Remember now: Red smoke everywhere, fences being torn down, 8 thousand or so densely (densely densely densely) packed people in my immediate area, clouds of smoke making it hard to see, people smoking pot in front of me potentially subjecting my best decision making judgment to the test.

Okay here comes the fun: Tick. Tick.. Tick… Tick…. TOCK! Rushing on in come the RIOT SQUADS!!! Cops with the police shields come busting in with black batons blasting out (what felt like gallons of) pepper spray onto the crowd.  AHHHHH..!! Remember i’m in row 35 so i got hit a bit on the arm, but EDGARD, oh poor Edgard, was in row freaking ONE. From his account, Ed got served with 2 eyes and a mouth full of the pepper spray straight to the grill piece. BOW! BAM! SON got PIECED! Oh man… He told me he got knocked to the floor and readily starting regurgitating sunday’s lunch. A true die-hard fan.

The train ride back to the hostel was, delicately put: FUCKING NUTS. Flags. Alcohol. Fans. Horns. Screaming. Shouting. Banging. Chanting. ES-PA-ÑA! … ES-PA-ÑA!! … ES-PA-ÑA!!! (Make SURE you check out the video in the media page.) Next…

Paris. Monday morning. Train station. Heading to London. Passport Border Control. 10 Minutes ’till train departure. OH SHIT! We just got detained???! REALLY?

So Ardag was set to meet us at the train station about 45 minutes before we left but due to the luxury of Murphy’s Law in action, he didn’t make it to the meeting spot before we had to bounce.  We had about 20 minutes until the train took off so we made our way to the platform.  We didn’t realize that in order to board a train that cruises from Paris to London, through the English Channel, we needed to go through a process similar to flying to another (strict) country.

Check it, so… We get to the spot where we needed to go to begin the boarding process.  Done. They stamped our passports.  Done. We walk up to the next window, i guess it’s called immigration control, and they inform me that i need to fill out a separate immigration card in addition to just having my passport.  Okay, so i start bangin’ that out, with the swift hand-speed style of an x-graffiti-ninja, and in the distance i hear jacob. Jacob. JACOB. wtf? Turn around and its Ardag waving his arms, shouting, sweating, motioning, ayoooooooo!

Now, 15 minutes till the train departs.  I drop my pen (but not my 30lb book bag), run to him, give him an awesome “Peace Out Bro” hug –  immediately after realizing that i just ran BACK OUT of the screening area and apparently caused somewhat of a scene.   The agents didn’t seem to feel elated about me, Mr. Action Jackson, as it was with great disgust that they let me back into the area that i was already in, to continue filling out my immigration card.

Now may be a good time to confess to you one of my most deepest, dirtiest, juiciest, untold, disgusting secretes ever: I AM A SPOILED WHITEBOY. Deep deep deep deep DEEP down inside, i feel, i deserve, whatever the hell it is, i want (work and wisdom required).  Now, the cool part here is i am semi-conscious of how funking lucky and blessed and gifted and irrelevant and “a non-contributing-zero” that i actually am.  And to add an additional poor attempt to justify my over-obtaining, under-grateful self, i do believe wholeheartedly in the karma concept and that giving value (whether its love, food, inspiration, humor, art, creativity, warmth, etc) to people is part of the path to fulfillment (especially when following our heart and using our strengths in the process).  That diary dialog being said, i’m actually not looking to change my inner beliefs about deserving everything i want, but rather, i’m looking to put them into use in a way that can benefit everyone else also.  In other words, i deserve the food, so i can help feed the hungry… yada yada yada, woof woof woof.  This is all transitional material into this next piece, right here:

In a nutshell, homeboy at the next window, said this. “Son, you are a broke bum and we do NOT want you in our country because you have no job, and no money on you, and we are threatened by your sensationally delicious smelling body (i showered) and phenomenal physique (and went for a run).” So this bastard took our passports, gave us some bootleg looking white photocopied paper essentially telling us that we had no rights, and freaking detained us!!

Well the cool thing at this point was we didn’t need to rush any more since we undoubtedly knew that we were missing our train.  And, being the budget backpackers we are (cheap bastards), we already found out we’d get our money back if we got rejected from entering the UK.

So they brought me into the interrogation room first.  “PUT YOUR BAG ON THE TABLE NOW YOU LITTLE PANZY!!” as he slammed the door so hard it made the walls tremble. — LOL, just playing —  It was a nice lady who asked me politely to put my backpack on the table.  So i did.  Next she strapped on a rubber glove and asked if i would mind if she went through my stuff.  As to which i replied, as long as you’re not going through me.  So for the next 30 minutes, little lady looked through everything of mine from my (sex toy) Buddha beads, to my (terrorist) journal, to my (narcotic) green vibrance smoothie powder. Her and the original Humpty Dumpty looking dude kept rotating in out of the room while questioning me.  Then they started rotating me and Edgard in and out, questioning us to see if our stories matched.  After about an hour and a half into this episode of “when-being-in-a-rush-to-catch-a-train-goes-wrong“, the final piece of evidence that pushed Humpty over the edge to convince him we were not terrorists seeking world domination, or refugees seeking shelter, or immigrants seeking employment was this:  Not my 30 pound traveler’s backpack.  Not my US Citizen’s passport.  Not my Eurail pass with the other 8 countries we just visited. And definitely not my return home flight information. Humpty asked if i had any cool pictures to prove i was a tourist, like some shots of the Eiffel Tower.

Personally, i think he’s just bored with his life and is looking to leech onto other peoples coolness to pass the time (AND, i don’t blame him). So i showed him the picture of Edgard dropping Acid in the Louvre. And, also the one of the flames from me crashing the car i stole into the backside of the Eiffel Tower. Make sure you check the “Media for:” page to see those.  Apparently he must have been an ol’ skool’ grand-theft-auto-acid-dropin’-hippie because that did the deed, and we were accommodated with ticks for the next train to the UK.

A quick account of other cool things that have taken place are, but are not limited to:

  • Me brushing up on my Spanish (as Edgard is fluent (so is my dad btw)) and i’m taking an interest in being able to hold (a 6th grade level) conversation myself. (Ideas to ease the task have been: 1. Moving to Spain for a while, or 2. Installing my computer’s operating system in Spanish). Pretty cool how those 6 years of Spanish classes may not have gone to waste after all (my favorite semester was the one that Edgard and i were in the same class and the teacher was a yamaka wearing orthodox jew from the south with a heavy accent.)
  • My signature sign of relaxing in Rome being a dot (in this instance a few) in between my eyes from all the grease that comes complimentary with 4 courses of pizza for 3 days in a row.
  • Edgar doing break-dancing keg stand moves with fraternity kids. (caught on tape)
  • This girl guessing my bday in 3 tries (amazing!) and then me meditating on it for a minute, literally, and then guessing hers in ONE FUCKING SHOT!!!!! (MIND BLOWING TO ME)
  • I’m starting to curse A LOT more (see last bullet point). Not so thrilled about this, and plan to cut back to my normal style of chit-chat when i get back home. Life on the road brings the beast outta’ the cage!
  • Continuing to learn more and more (and more!) about myself each and every day.  Taking lots of notes, and definitely putting nutrition into effect as one of my fundamentals.  I already cut out meat when i got back from Hawaii (amazed at the increase in energy) and am going to cut white carbs when i get back from Europe (super excited about this).

I’m gonna sign off with one wish for you,and that wish is this: A PATH WITH A HEART (and all that that entails). As my mom was curious to find out, i will not be signing off as BAMF, but rather,

with major flava’ funk and soul, ya boy, on purpose,
Jacob!

PS: Make sure you check out the picks talked about in this post HERE!

PPS: This is where i was when i found a computer that was willing to send this out:

[mappress]