Umm, we left Belgrade for Novi Sad, my girlfriend and I, about three weeks ago. And I’d been planning to write about it, thinking about getting here on a day when my girlfriend had just got her period — but we are now in the midst of our third separation in the last nine months or so of traveling together. And it’s difficult to have all of that in your guts, alone. In a loft. On the fifth or sixth floor of an apartment building. In a small town. In northern Serbia. But I will try.

Classical music. A glass of beer. The windows open, slightly. I’ve been smoking like a chimney, lately. A bad and overused metaphor. Like Vonnegut up here, pacing. Wrote 20 songs on my laptop over the last four days during a break from work. Uhhh, I haven’t been writing, really.

I started a poetry manuscript for our travels in Turkey and Serbia. And I’d been planning on continuing that script for when we went to Bosnia-Herzegovina together. But that never happened. Instead, she went alone. Good.

We fought. And that had been happening, on and off, for quite a while. It usually was more morose and misguided when she felt her period wafting in the winds and there was nothing I could do about that, really. It was inevitable. Obviously. The first time it happened, we were in Da Nang, Vietnam, together. And that was the first time she’d ever farted in front of me. That was the first time I had seen her in the special underwear she brought with her to wear when being sexy didn’t matter. She had to be comfortable.

Well, everybody farts. So that’s fine. Right, ma?

What started me traveling to Eastern Europe in the summer of ‘19? Her. Goddamnit.

And that’s fine too. In fact, I think we had fought about me buying a ticket from South Vietnam to Berlin during that week when her panties were thick and her skin was very thin.

“HOW COULD YOU BUY THAT PLANE TICKET WITHOUT ME?” Her actions spoke, loudly. When she walked immediately out the door, after the fact. Uhh, Chinese people can’t readily jump on a plane to anywhere they want to. We won’t discuss that here. Because I’m itching to write about this and I’m also itchy from the leftover bedbug bites I received so lovingly in a Budapest hostel with degenerate assholes who weren’t loved enough by their mothers when they were growing up. A mother’s love, early in life, is very important to dental proclivities — later on in adulthood. I’ll let you figure that one out.

Uh, yeah. So we separated in Da Nang. She went back to China and I went to South Vietnam. There was a storm. My flight was delayed. I stared out the window and farted. Shit. I think I’ve used that motif before.

I DIDN’T FART, I’M JUST MAKING THIS SHIT UP AS I GO ALONG.

I got to Berlin and I felt awkward and strange. The women were big and the city seemed alive with art and drunks and everywhere people were drinking big bottles of beer on a Friday afternoon in the hot and succulent sunshine of summertime, early on in June. That was something which was going to occur for the rest of the trip — big bottles of beer. No more shitty beer, either. I’d gotten used to my 9 cans back in Da Nang, each night.

“Do you have to drink every night?” My then-girlfriend (?) had asked me.

“Is that a serious question?” I responded. “Why did Mozart invent the moon?”

She looked at me, blandly. And never asked that question again. Just sit there and look good in your black silk pajamas, fartin’ up the place. Like a benchwarmer baseball player chewin’ the same gum all night, what?

Anyway, I liked Berlin as a first impression. There were many touristy things that I didn’t mind because they didn’t seem corny, to me. There was a big gate where the Berlin Wall had stood in the center of the city. That was where Reagan made his big speech, full of bravado. And that, incidentally, was also where the Nazis had marched before they belched pestilence, rat poison, and Ivy League capitalists with their funding-of-everything, both sides, it didn’t matter. Yeh. So what?

And that was also, incidentally, where the consulate buildings were all situated in solidarity, sure. Italy, France, Britain, Spain. I saw that and I quickly realized the strength of EUROPE. As a society, and as a civilization. It made me think that if any outside EVILDOER ever had any wily ideas about taking over the city of Berlin — it would most likely never happen again. And it occurred to me that all of the badmouthing of refugees or immigrants that fled or went to Berlin, whether legally or illegally, would or could somehow alter or drastically change EUROPEAN society — forever — was total bullshit.

There were chains in a link of a fence all around Europe, I was going to learn, and it was in the form of the governments built up on European soil. I felt proud about it because of my perfectly tanned, olivy skin.

I drank and worked, in Berlin, living in an Airbnb with two other god-fearing souls. Maybe they weren’t, I don’t (didn’t) know — because I never saw them for the entire week, although I sometimes saw a girl’s hair in the shower. I thought that was strange, and the landlord of the place — I guessed he’d lived there at one time or another — was very short with me and his friendliness was also farcical, it seemed. In other words, he liked the money. And it was in the Pretzel-bauer section of the city, so that meant ritzy, ditzy-do.

At night, you could hear packs of wild fauna leaving the bars, hollering in German. I stayed away from most of the people there, in terms of “making friends”. I was a loner and I liked it that way. I used the metro lines, constantly, and never paid. It was nice. I liked the parks the best. Big statue of Mozart and Beethoven. That was my favorite. And the German people seemed to be intermixed with all of their surrounding cultures, just fine.

PRAGUE

I thought Prague was boring. It seemed, living at a hostel, or staying there for a week — the first time I’d ever stayed in a hostel at the ripe age of 32 — that it had some kind of an allure to tourists and middle-twenty-somethings who read novels about Prague where the main character (Strong Female Type) had come to Prague in search of a European Knockout (Unemployed Dude Who “Worked For Himself”). Uh. I wasn’t that impressed by the city but I did like seeing so many different people like me. Weirdo freaks who walked around with headphones or ripped jeans. And the beer there was good.

I’d asked a kid one night at the reception desk if he had a bottle opener.

He smiling, gargantuanly. “Of course I do, I’m Check.”

I didn’t know what that meant. But now I do.

I also met a rambling So-Cal girl at a bar one night who wrote in my red Vietnamese notebook a bunch of places for me to visit. She said her boyfriend was a stoner pothead type and I told her my girlfriend was a Chinese girl. We talked for maybe two hours. Nice. We exchanged numbers and I never saw her again. Even better!

Oh, and Prague sells weed chocolate. I ate a lot of it. And I drank their beer, walking around the cobblestone streets, gawking at the European architecture. French motifs. Rabbits running around with buckteeth. Little fuckers.

The bridges were cool. And I sneakily snapped photos of Chinese tourists in groups. Sent them to my girlfriend.

“Look baby!”

“If you zoom in real close on that one lady, she’s looking right at me!”

Hahaha, hhahahhha.

BRATISLAVA

Well, shit. I didn’t have plans to go to Slovakia. Really, I was killing time to meet up with my girlfriend in Turkey because that was where she could travel to, in Europe, without too much trouble. I was already getting tired of Eastern Europe, truthfully. Berlin had taught me the ugly grayness of Communism’s wake. All the gray buildings. And that fucking wall. Shit.

Prague was the first place where I’d noticed people were starting to look at me. Strangely. The art seemed cool there, signs in parks with bizarro setups and buttons to press to hear a Czech poet … going on and on … about what? I didn’t know. And their photography, on those signs in parks, was also bizarre. Like a girl facing a mirror and you couldn’t see anything but her big fat ass in heels, black, and lace pajamas. I guess I missed my girlfriend too much.

Anyway, I’d taken a bus from Berlin to Prague. And then I’d repeated the maneuver down to Bratislava. The bus was late, I think. It was hot. I sweated. On the bus, finally. There was a Prague girl across the aisle, sitting with her big black fashionista hat. I immediately disliked her. Then, along the way, I noticed she was European and she’d struck up a conversation with another girl sitting next to her, in English. I realized that they were talking about their travels and the European girl was offering her new friend some advice and then I felt like a spec of dust on Satan’s dick.

Oh boy. Bratislava was also very cool on the first impression. The women seemed friendlier, right away. The younger ones did, at least. They looked at you and looked into your eyes and smiled. The older ones, however, looked at you and frowned. I even had one lady look at me while holding a baby and she was the first person to ever look at me with utter disdain. Some of my other interactions — like exchanging money — made me feel like the locals there didn’t really care for the foreigners. Unless they could make money from them.

There was a blue church that I liked, on the first day in Bratislava. I’d booked five nights, thinking that that would be ENOUGH. Time. There.

When I took a picture of the blue church, some of the locals whispered in their local language.

“I BET HE EATS DOGSHIT WITH A SPOON.”

“I BET HE SPOONS DOGSHIT TO HIS CRIPPLED MOTHER WHILE FONDLING HIS BALLS WITH A BIRD’S FEATHER.”

No, they weren’t very friendly at all.

I liked the place where I stayed, although it was a challenge to find it. It was situated in a courtyard. And you had to ring a buzzer. The place was next to a Chinese restaurant. That made me feel pretty good!

I met a Turkish dude. Then the next night, I met a Slovakian kid who had a Misfits tattoo. The weekend came and I was polite to the other guests and I drank my wine and typed my poems in peace and then on Saturday, a dude was in the bunk below me and a girl burst into the room, she was very young and she was Asian.

“WHERE ARE YOU GUYS FROM?” She wanted to know.

We all started talking. She was from Macau. The only reason I knew where the hell that was was because of my girlfriend.

“You have a girlfriend?”

“I KNOW CAN YOU BELIEVE IT.”

“I’m jealous.”

I went out with the dude to get some beers. We came back, drank them. He yanked out a can of whiskey. IN A FUCKING CAN. We downed that and went out around the touristy areas. Went to an Irish pub. Got a beer. Then went to another place, dancing was involved. I broke up a fight!!! Two black guys came in swinging chairs. I stopped them from cracking open a bouncer’s skull. PEACENICK. BEATNIK. However you spell it.

The next day, my new friend went out and left me groaningly hungover in my bed. My girlfriend was texting me. I could barely respond.

Later, I went out in the rain. Somehow, we ended up at a Slovakian kid’s art installation that was a piece of shit. Got out of there — kid was like a Beastie Boy. AH SHIT I THINK A MOSQUITO GOT IN HERE. WAIT A MINUTE…

BUDAPEST

I’m now writing standing up. And E.E. Cummings and Hemingway are dead. I got stuck in Budapest, and I think this is getting a little too long. But I will say I liked my time here the best. Maybe 10 days. Hostel to hostel, then I got my own place — and after that I got another place to myself on the opposite side of the Danube River. Technically, the city is made up of three different towns, or some shit. I’m sure there’s plenty of other blogs about it.

The people here gave me the worst looks of all. They couldn’t believe I’d walk around with long hair, a Thai beer shirt, sleeveless, and colorful shorts with my Italian sausage all shriveled like ice cubes in the sun.

Fuck ‘em!

TURKEY

I met up with my girlfriend! It was good to see her face and to touch her skin and to talk with her and to take walks and to laugh and cook meals, with and for her, and to drink wine together — the Turkish beer was the pits, man, like apple tarts — AH, I THINK THIS THING IS STILL IN HERE — and the tea was good but the coffee was the best.

If you ever get a chance, go to Turkey just for the coffee alone. I mean go for the coffee. Don’t go alone. Or go alone if you want. Shit.

Uh, Istanbul was okay. Too many people for me. But my girlfriend liked it a lot, all the shops and carpets. They looked at her strangely which I didn’t PREFER. And I liked the East Side better. We had a place overlooking the sea and I sat out there every morning drinking the strong coffee, overlooking the water, talking with the seagulls, barefooted and shirtless, working. Ha!

At night, we watched the sunsets, all pink and purple and orange and red, and immediately went inside before the vampires came out to suck our blood. Bastards.

Then we went to Antalya for two weeks. It was beautiful! Go there! Hot as fuck. A harbor. People try to rip you off. And the locals stare at Asian people. What a place!

SERBIA

They were much friendlier here. And although my girlfriend enjoyed the food better in Turkey — all the salads and ribosomes and tomatoes which we were getting sick of — I was glad to be drinking real beer again. Belgrade seemed to be conditional — you had to seek out the good spots. And the river wasn’t nearly as impressive as it had been in Budapest — for me. Budapest had the better neighborhoods. Berlin had the best graffiti. And Serbian women! Whoa!

“Hey,” my girlfriend said one day in Belgrade before we started fighting.

“What?” I asked her, pouring a two liter bottle of beer down my esophagus.

“Let’s go to a northern city?”

“Huh?”

Novi Sad.

I was in the shower in Belgrade on our final day there after a week. She’d had trouble with the internet and she taught English online. And she was just getting her period. So it was quite a mess. Even in her stylish outfit that looked like a 60s American abstract painter, this whole fullpiece suit kinda thing that was “IN”, I still thought she was beautiful, always the most beautiful woman in town — with me — even when we were fighting. Damn it all. That was the hardest part, walking around town after a quick banter, mumbling to myself, getting lost, going back to her, all quiet and dark — the room, not her. See, she didn’t get that way. Only I did.

AH, SHIT IT GOT ME AGAIN!

“I’m losing my mind,” I told her during our second week in Novi Sad.

“I know you are.”

“It’s cause we’re fighting.”

She said nothing, merely sitting there. During the first week, she’d gone out after her classes (the internet at the new place was much better than the first, Belgrade, we both liked Novi Sad better, friendlier people, laidback atmosphere, not that Belgrade wasn’t laidback, but, shit, I’m running out of time — mosquito, where are you?) she got herself two dresses.

And when we were fighting, she’d mentioned the flowers on the blue dress. Dark blue, I think. Or maybe it was black.

Anyway, it fit her figure perfectly. And when she was wearing her glasses, it was very hard to be mad at her. And one morning when she came down in those black silk pajamas, she was in the kitchen — only a day or two before, she’d come down the steps like that and it was all I could do, stupidly, to smile at her, smiling dumbly, at how beautiful she was in the morning, like that — and I realized, as I saw her light blue underwear through the back of the pajamas where the ass shone through, not really a slit, but just a spot where you could see some of her skin, whenever she was naked under there, oh, all of European summer to get to her, I realized, then, that she used that, she used it, at times, against me.

And it was the first time I didn’t think she was so beautiful like that.

One of the most important lessons I learned all summer long.

Six countries. Eight cities and towns.

Goodnight.

Wherever you are…