The Complete Story
Last Updated: 12 June 2003
What some
European visitors say
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Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport
Kris: {garbled} we're at the airport and Beth, check, has her scarf.
Kris: Flight 50 to Detroit has been moved...Where?
Beth: No, it's there.
Kris: Yeah. Has been moved to gate thirty-three. The plane is on the way from the hangar...The plane is on the way from the hangar...The plane is on the way from the hangar.
Beth: Rebecca is still spending quality time with me.
{laughs}
Beth: Want to say anything, Honey?
Rebecca: The plane is still on the way from the hangar. It's stuck. In the hangar. They forgot to open the doors.
Kris: We had a little fog.
{laughs}
Unknown Location
{laughs}
Kris: No.
On the train to Heidelberg
Kris: Hi! Is it on?
Beth: Dear Auntie....ZUG, not Heidelberg.
Kris: Ahhhhmmm...
Beth: Without luggage!
{laughs}
Kris: Did we mention that we arrived in Frankfurt without our luggage? The plane leaving Minnepolis was late and we arrived with ten minutes to change to our flight in Detroit to Frankfurt and our luggage didn't make the jump as satisfactorily as we did.
Beth: So I asked the guy who was running this train how to get to Frankfurt on, Heidelberg on foot.
{laughs}
Beth: And he told me I was on the right train.
Kris: Say "My German's not so good."
Beth: My Deutsch is nicht so gut. Ich spreche Deutsch nicht so gut.
Kris: Ja!
{laughs}
Kris (badly, with Beth helping): Ich spreche Deutsch nicht so gut. Nicht. Nicht.
Beth: So...because our luggage isn't here, we have decided to leave town.
{laughs}
Kris: Ja!
Beth: And call some weird phone number that's in German and tell them where to send it.
Kris: Explain where we are and what our phone number is so that they can deliver our luggage. Jawohl!
{laughs}
Beth: More later!
Heidelberg Schloss
{yawns and stretches}
Beth: Hi! We're in Heidelberg Schloss.
Kris: Yup!
{laughs}
Kris: We're standing on top of the world's largest vat. Fifty-five thousand gallons.
Beth: No guard rails!
{shudders}
Beth: {garbled}
Art Room in Heidelberg Schloss
Beth: We want to know why Saturn was eating a baby!
Heidelburg Hauptbahnhof
Kris: Um, the Paris train is hopefully, finally, near. We have killed almost six hours at the train station.
{wimpers}
Kris (sadly): We're cold. We're tired. We've been up for, I dunno, thirty-six-some hours. We have no luggage. We have no place to go.
Beth: At least our spirits are high.
{more wimpers}
Paris
Beth: We're in France!
Kris: We got a place to stay and so now, we're just like going around the city. They've got a really eaaaasy to understand transportation system. Are we? Oh! We are on!
Beth: Yup, it's running.
Kris: Ahhhh, Oui! Oui! {laughs}
Beth: This city is really really really really really really really cool.
Kris: It's very cool. Tre...Tre cool! {laughs}
Beth: We think we just found Pont Neuf but we sat down on this bus bench so that we could talk about how really really really really really really really cool Paris is.
Kris: We found the little palace and the big palace. Now we're trying to figure out if that is the bridge based on where those are. That about sum it up?
Beth: Yeah! Um, Bonjour! {laughs}
Kris: Au Revoir! {laughs}
Beth: Au Revoir!
Kris: Au Revoir!
Arc de Triumphe
Beth: Is it on? Yes.
Kris: It is?
Beth: Yes.
Kris: Oh! I found out today that you can sit ON the Arc de Triumphe, but you can't sit NEAR the Arc de Triumphe. And for some reason, the man in the red jacket knew that I sprechen sie English.
{laughs}
Beth: Yellow bag.
{more laughs}
Eiffel Tower
Kris: Beth has surreptitiously pulled the recorder out of the BRIGHT YELLOW BAG in the middle of the Eiffel Tower. {laughs}
Beth: We're under the middle of the Eiffel Tower. There are no pictures of the middle of the Eiffel Tower from underneath.
Kris: No pictures? Oh! That we've seen on postcards? No! Not a hot postcard item.
Beth: So we just thought we'd tell you about it. We're gonna walk up the Eiffel Tower now. {laughs} That might be my last message before we fall.
Palais de Chaillot
Beth: {garbled}
Kris: We're directly across from the Eiffel Tower, not on the big thing of grass with the building at the end. It's the other side, with the water and the roller skaters.
Beth: Right.
{wind}
Kris: And...
Beth: A pocket full of garbage 'cuz they don't have garbage cans in France.
Kris: And a Christian roller skater. And we did find one garbage can. Oh! I forgot to put the popcorn cone in it. D'oh!
Notre Dame
Kris: {garbled} makes me wonder if we missed very important critical details of the trip.
Beth: Like Notre Dame?
Kris: Yes. We're at Notre Dame. Underneath the gargoyles and some people are coming...
Beth: Our backs hurt when we sneeze.
Kris: Oh...it's very pathetic. We've walked a very long way.
Beth: The socks are part of my feet.
Kris: {moan} Yeah...mine too.
{more moans}
Aloha Hostel
Beth: Why don't you tell them about my shower.
Kris: Beth really really wanted to take a shower when we got back from our sixty mile hike across Pair-ee. So we get an all you can ride metro card, and we metro all over so that we can walk {laughs} further back or something...I dunno. So, anyway, after all of this she goes upstairs and takes all her clothes off and the shower floor was all wet and she braves viruses and nasty nasties from the floor and...
Beth: {garbled}
Kris: {laughs} And she can't, she can't figure out how the water works. {laughs}
Beth: {still garbled in the background}
Kris: She thinks some German man is wearing her clothes around. But we called the airport today and they claimed that they'd send our clothes today but...THEY LIED. So after failing to turn the water on because she hit the hot water shut-off valve instead of the on-switch, she trooped back here and...and she kinda pouted about it {laughs}. She troop-trooped back down there and...what happened? Oh! She forgot her towel. She came back completely dripping wet about five minutes later. {laughs} Anyway, she's showered now and she's a little happier about it, but...
{laughs}
Kris: We both really wish we kinda had our stuff. Oh, well.
Aloha Hostel, the next evening
Beth: It's really late on Tuesday. And we spent all day chasing the Australian guy around Paris. And it kinda sucked, but it was kinda fun. Yah. He showed us the catacombes but he made us walk 'cuz the idiot didn't buy enough bus tickets. {laughs} He's, he's, he's on a budget, but we're not. {laughs} It kinda sucked. But we got to see billions and billions of bones. Billions and billions of bones. And just now we finished eating and got rid of him as he was hitting on somebody else. Nice guy, but we just don't want to sit up all night drinking with him. And, the end. This guy had stolen a lobster and we found out about it and he was cooking it in the kitchen. And when he came back out Kris and I fucked with him. {laughs} We...Kris, you can tell more of the story.
Aloha Hostel, later that same evening
Kris: Hi. This is Kris. Beth is in the bathroom right now, so I thought I'd recount the little story of Alistair the Australian with two first names. Alistair Jeremy, came and tried to make us to go the Eiffel Tower at night. First he worked on us both, but Beth had her contacts out and I was in the process of taking mine out and we were tired tired tired. Then he tried to get one of us to go. And then the other. And we said no no no no no no no. It was very flattering, and very nice. He's an eletrical engineering student in Australia in Sydney. He owns his own PC programming business. But--we're just not interested. Anyway he finally, after much much convincing and both of the all-you-can-ride bus passes for the day, went off.
Aloha Hostel, still later
Beth: I don't know what Kris said, but she's lying!
{pause}
Beth: M-maybe I do know what she said, but here's what I got to say. {moan} I'm tired. We could be in Ireland tomorrow. Or Lyon. Or Stuttgart with David. Or...in prison. {shudder} No, no...
Sainte Chapelle
Kris: Here we are in Sainte Chapelle with the American Femi-Nazi...
Beth: Judith!
{laughs}
Kris: She wants the ticket that's both to Sainte Chapelle and Conciergerie-whatever.
{laughs}
Beth: I like it. It's a prison.
Kris: It's where they had Marie Antoinette and those people, um, like had them? Like for dinner?
{laughs}
Kris: She wasn't exactly meatloaf.
{laughs}
Kris: I said, "So what is Conciergerie, or whatever the hell?" And she said, "well, it's where they had Marie Antoinette." Had her what?
Beth: Robespierre
Kris: {laughs} Oh, and Robespierre
{laughs}
Kris: Anyway, she and her LOVELY family finally convinced one of the ticket gate people what they wanted and rectified the situation. Apparently. They also carry Fodor's {garbled}
Streets of Paris
Beth: Right now we're outside. We've secretly substituted the coffee these bocce ball players normally drink with Folger's Crystals. Let's listen and see if they notice.
{sounds of men talking and playing bocce ball in background}
{sound of car driving by}
Kris: One of them has just been shot. He can't stand the taste of the coffee. He's spitting it out, and he's punching the other man.
On the Train to Vienna
Kris: Beth is going to have lesson ONE: checking the red light before trying to talk into the tape recorder. The pause button is the glitch that keeps hanging her up, BUT, after lesson ONE she should be fine. {laughs}
Beth: What lesson are we on?
Kris: Ah, right now we're not on any lesson.
{laughs}
Kris: Um, so! Beth gave me the tape recorder to say something about the fact that, we didn't leave enough time to get from the hostel to the train station. We thought, "Oh, we'll get there a half an hour early and it will be fine." So we left forty-five minutes to get there, and it took forty-five minutes to get there.
Beth: Exactly forty-five minutes.
Kris: Exactly! I mean, and that's so, we thought it would take fifteen minutes and then a half-hour there 'cuz the metro whipped us around so efficiently the whole rest of our stay. Unfortunately, we tried to catch the train during what is apparently Paris' extended rush-hour. {laughs}
Beth: Three trains.
Kris: And we had to take three trains, so.
Beth: Three crammed trains. {laughs}
Kris: We walked up and put our...
Beth: backpacks
Kris: metro passes in, which I knew was a problem right away because you don't put in a Paris metro pass to get to Vienna. So I asked a man,
Beth: {garbled}
Kris: "Pardon. Parlez-vous anglais?" And the nice commuter man said, "A leetle." And I said "Train. Vienna. Where? Could you help us find it?" And he said "This is the suburb train. The commuter train to the suburbs." And I said, "Oh, we're looking for Vienna. Do you know who might be able to tell us?" So he took us to the information desk and he asked the man at the information counter/booth/cage where the train was and the man pointed down and so he pointed down there. And I said, "Can you ask him what gate? What number?" And so he asked the man what number and then he said "Follow me." And he took us there and pointed at it and we got on it and IT STARTED MOVING. Here's Beth!
Beth: No, no. It's even better than that. {laughs} I walked up to the door and it started shutting on me. It bounced off me and opened up again and Kris passed through. And I said, "Vienna?" and the guy said "Oui." {laughs} And the train rolled down the tracks. {laughs}
Kris: Sleeping car sorta nice man.
Beth: Oh! So then we went, we sat down and we were breathing and taking off our backpacks when the guy said, "No. No. Vienna, eight miles to the front of the train." {laughs} So then we hoisted up our packbacks and reeled and reeled and reeled on the moving train that was slamming us around with our backpacks half-on half-off all the way up to the sleeping car. And then we put 'em in there and everything's in reservation and there was only a French guy conductor and he told me, "No, no. No place for you." and was upset. And then I came up front to talk to the sleeping car guy and he said, "Six hundred and eighty three francs, bit person." And I went, "Oh, no." {laughs} And then there was two very nice guys from Vienna. One,who spoke English and he found us a place for two hundred and...zwei-hundert und siebzig mark. {laughs} No! Franc. That's weird.
Kris: Yeah.
Beth: German Francs. Okay! So! Here we are {laughs} oh, my...
Kris: In the car...Austrian man was soooo nice.
Beth: {garbled}
Kris: He...he looked at the whole and the...
Beth: {garbled}
Kris: Yes. We told the French man at the train station, 'Moo-ey Bien" and I said, "Thank you VERY MUCH" to the very nice Austrian and he got this pursed up look on his face, this very very gentlemanly look and looked at the car next to us which was full of drunken Australians and said, "Ohhhh, I fear those men are drunken." {laughs} It was sooo nice! {laughs}
Beth: And then he told us Austrians aren't nice.
{laughs}
Kris: Oh, yeah. And he, we told him that people at work had told me that Austria had the nicest people of all of Europe as far as being helpful and courteous to tourists. And he said "Oh..." He said, "I have found that I don't think Austrians are very nice." He said, "I think that they are not so polite."
{laughs}
Kris: "Not so polite all the time." It was something like that. Well, but he was very, just exceptionally polite. Oh! He was so nice. Anyway, he saved our ass! So, here's Beth!
Beth: Bonsoir, Pair-ee. Guten Tag, Vienna!
Kris: {garbled}
Beth: Bonsoir? Oh! That's "good night." I'm okay! I said "Good Night, Vienna," er, okay.
Kris: On...{laughs} {garbled} say it. Bonsoir, Au Revoir, Pair-ee!
Spanish Riding School, Vienna
Beth: Kris. What do you think of the Lippizaner Stallions so far?
Kris: Huh?
Beth (whispers): Wake up, Kris! {laughs} {garbled}
Hofburg - Kaiserappartements
Austrian Tour Guide: {Blah blah blah blah blah blah}...from Belgium. Very very desolated, life, so for he commited suicide...{blah blah blah}...who wanted...{blah blah}...to save the Empire at the very last moment...{blah blah blah}...shoot him in Sarajevo. The declaration of war on Serbia, which started the first World War maybe was the last chance to avoid this what happened afterwards...{blah blah blah}...Yugoslavia and so on. The balkanization of Eastern Europe because this...{blah blah blah}...postcards, literature...We finish our visit here. I hope you have enjoyed Vienna and return with good memories. Good bye.
Beth: Some live conversation from our exciting tour of the Empirial Palace in Vienna. Kris?
Kris: Yes. Highly recommended.
{choking}
Beth: Baroque.
{more choking}
Kris: Oh, Sisi. Sisi's very cute.
Beth: And Sisi is Elisabeth.
{laughs}
Universitat, Vienna
Beth: Okay, Kris. What do you think of this Viennese elevators?
Kris: Don't leave your arm sticking out when you go past floors.
Beth: Keep all arms and legs inside the ride until it comes to a complete stop, which this one doesn't.
Kris: Just...it's very peculiar.
Hostel Ruthensteiner
Beth: What do you think of Chocolate Banana, Mark? Kris?
Kris: Mark?
Beth: {garbled} name is Mark.
{laughs}
Kris: I think that they are Beich's Laffy Taffy with chocolate. Banana flavored, of course. But, um, kinda...
Beth: {garbled} so delicious!
Kris: The texture of Peeps, the flavor of Beich's, and that lovely chocolate coating. Beth?
Beth: Mmmmmmm.
Hostel Ruthensteiner, Later
Beth: I had kartoffel suppe for dinner. And what did you have, Kris?
Kris: I had liver meatball soup, thank you very much.
Beth: And what did the liver meatball look like floating around in its pool of nothingness?
Kris: It looked like those mmmalformed fetuses that they put in formaldehyde and the skin kinda flakes off.
Beth: Think it was trying to get away from your soup?
{laughs}
Kris: It kinda trembled in the pan when you {laughs} when you disturbed the soup nearby.
On the train to Budapest
Beth: Wanna hear something weird? We're on the train from Vienna into Austria. Kris went to go to the bathroom and she came back with a sorta startled expression on her face and made me get all my stuff and follow her to the bathroom and when we were in there, you know what we saw?
Kris: The tracks! Quite simply, just the tracks!
Beth: THROUGH the toilet.
{laughs}
Budapest Train Station
{music in background}
Beth: Here we are in Hungary listening to a Peruvian band. In the, yet another efficient train system city. Any comments, Kris?
Kris: No. Nope. Just the same. Just the same. Bye!
On the train back to Vienna
Beth and Kris (singing, badly): I feel so broke up. I wanna go home! So hoist up the John B. Sails. {laughs} See how the mainsail sets. {laughs}
Kris: I can't sing at all. {garbled} like that.
{laughs}
Beth and Kris (singing, still badly): Call for the Captain {mumble mumble} I wanna go home. I wanna go home. Let me go home. Let me go home. Oh, let me go home. I feel so break-up. I wanna go home.
Kris: So tell them about the nice Austrian man who didn't have to check our tickets again 'cuz he saw us this morning.
Beth: No. Never mind him. {sniff} The guy who stamped our tickets when we got over the Austrian border from Budapest said, {accented} "United States of America." {sneeze} And we went, "Oh, good!" And we clapped for him and he was all excited and he said, "Seven years! Citizen! I have passport, too!" {laughs}
Kris: {garbled} He said, {accented} "Ohhhh! You vacation in Hungary?" And we said, 'Yes. Well, for the day." And hoped that wasn't insulting. And he said, "Ohhh! Did you like?" And we said, "Oh, yeah. Very nice." Umm, we just saw the city. It was kinda like, well, it was okay. {laughs} Another city. In Europe. {laughs}
Beth: And we got our first full meal tonight.
Kris: We got our first full meal tonight, Beth says. Um, we had to skirt diahrrea in the train station. The food was very good and it said that English was a distant third after Hungarian and German. And boy! Everybody spoke "English? Little!". Well, all you need to know is a little. {laughs} Which, so, that was very nice 'cuz we had no idea how to say anything at all in Hungary.
Beth: Not even "yes" or "no".
Kris: And then, so after that nice Hungarian man on the train, the nice Austrian man came back and he said, "Oh tickets!" And I said, "Passport?" And he said, "Oh, no. Just tickets." And I said, "We saw you this morning." And he said, "Ohhh, yup!" And Beth waived the ticket and then he wouldn't take it.
{laughs}
Kris: Apparently he then remembered that he had also seen the ticket this morning. Um, and there was a nice cute little border patrol man in Hungary who wanted
Beth: {garbled} wave to him {garbled}
Kris: {laughs} He wanted to see our passports and...
Beth: Tell 'em we've been drinkin'.
Kris: We've been drinking. Can you tell?
Beth: {laughs}
Kris: Um, we've been drinking {gutteral} Dray-hah Boch Soooor.
Beth: {gutteral} 1854.
Kris: 1854. {gutteral} Mach Zeggey Brontasoor.
Train Speaker (in German): {blah blah blah blah blah blah}
Kris: Oops.
{laughs}
Kris: Don't step on the floor. It's a little wet. Kris, in her excitement to let you hear the conductor, spilled some beer.
Beth: Hey! Talk about being in first class.
Kris: We're in first class. You can flip up the seats and it's luxurious.
Beth: {garbled}
Kris: Oh! {laughs} There goes the man with the suitcase. He was peeking at us before. Oh! He's looking at us talk...
Beth: I think people think we're {garbled}
Kris: I think that we saw that man earlier 'cuz I saw a man in an argyle sweater that looked just like that man in the argyle sweater this morning.
Beth: {garbled}
Kris: {gasp} Beth has something to tell you about the beggar-man.
Beth: So, we're kinda waitin' to get out of Budapest. Kinda had enough of Budapest 'cuz everything closed at two and we kinda wandered around and then ate all-you-can-eat Hungarian food. {wretch} {laugh}
Kris: It was good, though.
Beth: It was great, but there was a shitload of it and we couldn't do it all and we kinda felt like we were insulting him by not eating it all. But, anyway, we left and we got to the train station an hour early and we got on the train, like, forty minutes early 'cuz the train station was really gross and there was diahrrea on the floor and there's a lotta bums and we're, like, "Ahhh, let's go sit on the train." So we came into our little first class compartment as the little bourgeoisie, the two of us sitting in our six-person compartment and this bum wandered through and he was, like, "Ahhhhla Beee bleeeba baaa bleeee baleeee." in Hungarian, showing us his broken arm. And both of us have spent all our Hugarian money, and he was like, "{grunt}". And then he kept insisting and insisting and then he showed us his broken arm again. And Kris went "American dollars?" Anything to get rid of him. And he was like, "Arrrrg", like he didn't want American dollars. So then we had a currency exchange problem with the man. And then kinda wandered out after Kris went, "NO FORENTS! No Forents!" And he shut the door and looked mad and then he walked into the next compartment and a female Hungarian train {pause} person walked down and went, "Get the hell out of the train." I thought she was gonna cute. She walked down the isle and she went "Get out of my train!" And he, like, screamed out of the train. So, that was my story. Do we have anything else to say? {laugh} {singing} A bunch of drunks in Hungary.
Kris: Ahhhm, here we are, Beth and Kris, drinking beer, signing off.......{boop}
YoHo, Salzburg
Kris: I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to say, but I think our room smells like sour beer puke.
Beth: You think we smell like sour beer puke?
Kris: No, I think the ROOM does.
Beth: Do you think there's a possibility we're, we're hung over?
{pause}
Kris: I think that's a possibility that has nothing to do with {laugh} the smell of the room.
Beth: That was my way to seque inta...
{laughs}
Kris: Oh. Beth! Why don't you take it from here?
Beth: {moans} Sound of Music Tour. {moan}
Salzburg Train Station
Beth: {garbled} like I had a lot of money.
Kris: Ohhhhh, it's actually on! Beth's shoving it and I'm afraid she's gonna smash my teeth in.
Beth: So far we've been very unhospitable. We, we haven't drank any of the alcohol offered to us by the nice man at the train station. {laughs} And then we got up and left him alone. {laughs} Kind of...not very...Gives American tourists a bad name. {laughs}
Kris: Ummmm...I noticed he's packing up. I'm just hopin' it's not so that he can come this way. Oh! D'oh! I forgot to leave the bus passes at the hostel. Shit shit shit. {pause} Shit.
On the train to Rome
Kris: Here we are. Hiding in a couchette car. Couch-ette?
Beth: No. We're not even in a couchette car.
Kris: Oh, we're not?
Beth: No.
Kris: Oh! Here we are. Hiding in a second class car where the seats sorta pull out. On our way to Rome. Oh! And we just started moving. We're in Innsbruck. And we're...turn the lights out. We pulled the shades down. We pulled the curtains shut and we're pretending that we're verrry sleepy.
Beth: And it's very crowded in here. You wouldn't want to open the door to sleep in here. {laughs}
Kris: Oh, no, 'cuz there's big masses everywhere. Can't tell if they're...
Beth and Kris: backpacks or people.
Beth: There's at least four of 'em in there.
Kris: In fact, here's Kris right now.
{thumping}
Beth: Oooo!
Kris: Putting her coat...her coat over the bag. It's a very large German woman. You would not want to come in here!
Beth: She probably hasn't taken a shower in years. Of course, that's probably what they're, some of them, are attracted to.
Kris: Ah, well. So! Here we are. So far, so good. {laughs} Okay!
Pensione Papa Germano, Rome
Beth: Hi! We haven't talked to you for a while and I'd like to explain to you why. {growling} Because we don't want to carry you around. {laughs} T-tell 'em what we did today, Kris!
Kris: We walked. And we walked. And we walked. And we took pictures of random old things that we didn't know what they were. And we walked. And we walked. And we walked.
Beth: {garbled}
Kris: {laughs} And then we took pictures of the Coloseum. Like, a whole roll. {laughs} And then walked, and walked, and walked and...
Beth: They threw us out of the Coloseum.
Kris: Yeah, they threw us out of the Coloseum and they were none too cheerful. We had Campbell's soup pasta for dinner, a second time. For breakfast, though, I must say we had some very very good coffee and simple, yet delicious, sandwiches. {laughs} I can't tell you how much I like to say "sandwich". 'Cuz you can say "sanwich sanwich sanwich" without the 'd', or you can say "sandwich" {laughs} And I can't say "sandwich" {laugh} without laughing. {laughs} Here's Beth to tell you what she bought at the Vatican.
Beth: I bought a glow-in-the-dark-Mary, and two glow-in-the-dark-baby-Jesuses, {whispers} and a rosary for my grandma - shhhh - I don't want her to hear. And I have to tell you, you know, twelve days into the trip, eleven days into the trip? I'm really annoyed with Kris 'cuz she leaves her window open all night and I can hear all the noise and it's cold, like we're sleeping outside. {laughs}
Kris: That's not fair. She's lying. Um, I've sort of given up trying to speak any other languages. {laughs} The lady last night said, "Sit down! Sit down! SIT DOWN!" Um...so I did.
Beth: Tell them about the suck-up waiter {garbled}
Kris: This suck-up waiter just makes me sick, so I'm not going to tell you about him. Ummmmm, we're trying to figure out how we're gonna pay for the hotel tomorrow since we're going to Pompeii. Yet, we're coming back here tomorrow.
Beth: {garbled}
Kris: Oh, and you know! Let me tell ya. I just love this! {laughs} It's busy busy busy busy busy busy busy traffic and you just, like, step out into the middle of it. And, it's not like everybody stops all at once, it's just that the car that's just about to hit you stops and the cars on either side go, and then you step out from in front of that car and in front of the next car and he goes, the car that you're now in front of stops, and the cars around him go. {laughs} It's like magic. I just can't believe...
Beth: {garbled}
Kris: {laughs} Oh, god. {laughs} I can't believe that they actually stop but, yet, they do. So, you just charge out in the middle of traffic like a wildebeest. {laughs} And the fittest survive, and it's great. But what's really weird, and I've said this to Beth, is that I've heard so much about how the drivers honk in Rome. Honk honk hohk honk honk honk honk. The only time you ever hear anybody honk is when a guy slams on his brakes to get a parking spot and everyone then in behind him hits him. {laughs} That's the only time we've heard any honking. We just charge out into a sea of traffic and nobody does a thing. {laughs}
Beth: They just kinda stop.
Kris: I don't get. Here's Beth with more Roman observations.
Beth: I think we should go to Venice next 'cuz they don't have any cars and we can recuperate from our Rome experience. {laughs} Tomorrow we're gonna go look at dead people frozen in their positions of horror at death. But we'll call it archeology and make it sound a little more classy. Um, okay, good night. Anything else, Kris?
Kris: {garbled}
Beth: Oh! We're gonna drink some Austrian beer in, from a supermarket we bought in Innsbruck. This is continuing our tradition of eating the wrong country's food and drinking the wrong country's drinks in the other country. It all began in...who was the first time we did that? Well, ah, let's just put it this way: last night you know where we ate in Rome? All that great Italian food? We ate at the American Bar and had a Campbell's soup meal from hell. And we decided we were asking for it so we went to an Italian restaurant tonight. And it was still the Campbell's soup meal from hell, except it came with lots of little chicken bones. Eeeeewwww. And I couldn't eat mine 'cuz it was gonna make me throw up so I had, all I ate was the french fries and the rice. Kris ate all of her little boney meaty things. Eeeeeewwwww.
Kris: {garbled} picked through the parts 'cuz, uh, you sorta wondered if you were done. If you would have picked it apart, it would have looked just like mine.
Beth: I know! I know! I thought I might flip 'em over and make it look like it had been stirred up. {laughs} But I didn't. It was, it's kinda like you speaking the language. I just didn't feel like dealing with it. {laughs} Take away these little boney things and then {pause} Oh! We ate pizza in Italy, too. Oh, pizza in Germany. No-Austria. We...
Kris: {garbled} Italian {garbled}
Beth: We went to an Italian restaurant in Germany. We went to an American restaurant in Italy. And now we're gonna drink some Austrian beer. And...
Kris: Which, I would like to point out, we bought at a supermarket DOWNTOWN. {laughs} How'd ya like to drink some downtown St. Paul supermarket beer?
{laughs}
Beth: Mmmmmm. Bye!
Pompeii
Kris: Okay! Here we are with our, someone else's Italian Tour Guide looking at Vesuvius from the Temple of Venus which was largely destroyed by an earthquake in ninety...
Beth: Sixty-two
Kris: Oh! Sixty-two A.D.
Beth: A full seventeen years before the big earth...the big volcanic thing. {laughs}
Kris: Beth, having a little trouble with her zipper. Hang on.
{groan}
{laughs}
Kris: Oh! There we go.
{laughs}
Beth: To my backpack...
Kris: Thank you! Oh! Gotta clear up those little potentials for misunderstanding. So the temple, I must agree, is, as he said, largely destroyed. So. Check in later when we find something interesting like, ahhh...
Beth: Something NOT largely destroyed.
Kris: Ah! Yah! That!
Pompeii, later
Kris: {garbled} the Basilica at Pompeii about to take the self-timer. It will be us and a large number of Japanese tourists. Any comments, Beth?
Beth: Um, why are all these pillows, pillars cut off at about five feet? Is that how tall people were back then?
Kris: Very confusing, I must say. Later.
Pompeii, more later
Kris: {garbled} while in Pompeii. I think this is, by far, our nicest day in Europe. It's warm. It's sunny. What do you say?
Beth: Y-y-y-eeaaaaaahhhhhh. Yea.
Pompeii, still later
Kris: {garbled} Both Kris and Beth have just taken off their jackets for the very first time in the whole of their trip to Europe.
Pompeii, after lunch
Kris: Beth! Why don't you tell us about the lasagne that you had for lunch.
Beth. No.....cheese....No....cheese, once again.
{laughs}
Beth: Like tuna casserole. But it didn't taste like it. Tasted like Campbell's soup with noodles.
{laughs}
Beth: And I bought cheese. And then Kris took a piece of my cheese.
{laughs}
Kris: That's about it!
Pompeii, some time later after lunch
Kris: It's sunny and nice in Pompeii and I think I'd like to take a nap.
{pause}
{thumps}
Beth: I was just wondering if you had.
{laughs}
Pompeii, following around some English tourists
Some English Tourists: {garbled and faint}
Beth: Way down there. House of large bath and small bath.
Some English Tourists: {garbled and faint}
Pompeii, after giving up on uninteresting English tourists
{wind}
Beth (reading from guidebook): {garbled} a house of {garbled} examples of pictoral decoration {garbled}
Kris: No.
Beth: {garbled}
{laughs}
Beth: {garbled}
Kris: {garbled}
Kris: Move along. It's a very nice...atrium.
Pompeii, later but before the next tourists
Beth: People...
Pompeii, eavesdropping on the Asian Tourists staring at Priapus
Funny Asian Tour Guide: {blah blah blah}
Asian Tourists: Ahhhhhh!
Funny Asian Tour Guide: {blah blah blah blah}
Asian Tourists: {laughs}
Theatro Piccolo, Pompeii
Kris: {garbled} theatro piccolo.
{pause}
Kris: Beth says, "yes." Don't know if you could hear that.
{pause}
Kris: Speak a little louder, Beth.
{pause}
Beth: {garbled and faint}
Kris: Now let's have a test. We'll rewind and play to see if we could pick up Beth.
{thumps}
Kris: Now we're going to have Beth talk as if she's doing Shakespeare in the theatre. That is to say, loudly and obnoxiously and see if she comes in any better.
Beth: {garbled, but louder}
Kris: Okay. Well, let's see.
Nearing the end of the day in Pompeii
Kris: Here we are working our way back from the far corner of Pompeii. Beth, what were your impressions of the ruins?
Beth: I'm with you. I think this place has just ruin-ed it for me.
Still nearer the end of the day in Pompeii
Kris: Beth keeps turning this on and handing it to me, so please notice that the mid-section of this tape is almost exclusively Kris. Not by her own designs, but by Beth's. So! I am here to tell you what Beth didn't tell you because she said it was a {garbled}. Lynn of the Hair Police, now I guess of R.J.'s, so Lynn formerly of the Hair Police, was absolutely correct. The coffee in Italy is indeed the best coffee I have ever had in my life. And I intend to have more tomorrow and more in Florence and more in Venice. Yes. That's the case. Here's Beth.
Beth: It's time to talk Art. Yes. We discovered something that all those, what is it? Renaissance, I don't know. All those paintings with those froochy treeeees that you see around the Renaissance time that they're kind of hazy and not like anything you've seen before? Well, they're here in Italy! They're really here! They're not, like, made up or hazed out. Airbrushed!
{laughs}
Beth: So!
Kris: {garbled}
Beth: Yeah! Yeah! They're airbrushed for real! Somebody walks up...yeah, smogged. They're smogbrushed! But wait. They didn't have smog back in the Renaissance, did they?
Kris: {garbled}
Beth: So, we decided that Mount ses-Vesuvius was...
Kris: {garbled}
Beth: It was, it was ver-yeah, very more. Much more spectacular, so. But also, you know, as we were looking around at people encased in ruins - the two or three that we saw, {laughs} um...four. We saw four.
Kris: {garbled}
Beth: We saw four body casts. That, well, gee, wouldn't it be weird - both of us thought this independently - if it erupted again and we got buried in Pompeii? And then two thousand years from now somebody excavated us? {laughs}
Kris: {garbled}
Beth: And then, you know, one of us is taking a picture and the other one's, like, pointing to the volcano. {laughs} Alright. Well, that's all I have to talk about right now.
Kris: Um, I'd just like to point out that while we were extremely disappointed in Pompeii for not having bodies, it was just, like, more, more buildings. More ruins. Garden of escape, I can't remember what it was, yeah. But, um, so...
Beth: {garbled}
Kris: I...{laughs} I think the world was making it up to us because we stopped at the stand-up bar and coffee house near the pensh-pensione and we got good dinner and really good coffee and then we had an okay pastry, it wasn't like the {garbled}-est pastry but it was, like, good, with more coffee. And...it was so nice. What other nice things happened? Oh! I found a book at the train station. I was so happy! And here's Beth.
Beth: Okay we had lots of Pompeii humor. Um, one of them was: we went into one of the houses. One of the five billion {laughs} Pompeii houses. Did you know that Pompeii is not like one little villa and, with a coupla houses, it's like a biiiiig city that got buried? So there's lots of walking once again. And, so we went into one of the little houses that a commoner lived in and went into one room and went, "Okay, Billy, here's your room. Okay, Kris, Sarah you have to share this room. 'No! Noooo, I don't want to share it.' Nance, here's your room." And then what did you, what did mom and dad say, Kris?
Kris: "And this is our room and you are not to come in without knocking."
{laughs}
Kris: "And this is {garbled} for your father and me."
Beth: Wait. We had more volcano humor. Oh, oh no. It was just more bad ruin humor. Okay. {garbled}
Kris: On the way out Beth said, "We're ruin-stoned!"
{laugh}
Kris: So...all you Tolkien people...
{laughs}
Florence
Kris: {garbled} eats all her ice-cream cone. Now wait! No no no. Sorry.
Beth: Five and a half.
Kris: Six?
Beth: Oh!
Kris: It's six, 'cuz it's, like, you know.
Beth: Yeah! But, nonetheless, it's over five dollars an ice-cream cone. It's good!
Kris: Mine was four. So...I can't make too much fun of it.
Beth: She's a bargain hunter.
Kris: I didn't go for the funky cone.
The Gold Bridge (?), Florence
Beth: What do you think of the bridge?
Kris: There's a guy painting a red boat down at the bottom.
Beth: Hmm? Hmm? Oh! I thought you meant on the bridge.
Kris: Oh?
Beth: Hmmm.
Florence, later
Beth: Well, here we are in Florence watching someone...
{noise}
Beth: Yes. Watching someone stuff...Oh!...She's made it!
{cheers}
Beth and Kris: zzzzzzz zzzzzzzz bzzzzzzzz >thump< >thump< >thump< bzzzzzzz
Beth: And then a relieved person.
Kris: Oh, and she left it open!
Beth: Cummon, Kris! Let's go!
Last message, Florence
Beth (singing): We're gettin' ready for a twenty-four hour train ride. Twenty-four train ride. Laa laaa laaa laaaa....laaaa laaa laaa...
Unknown location. A train?
{rumbling}
{garbled - sounded foreign}
{garbled - sounded domestic}
On the train to Amsterdam
Kris: Hi! Here's Beth. We're on the...oh, well let's see, I s'pose I could tell you about the dinner. She keeps handing this thing to me and I don't know what to say. We sat down in the {laugh} dining car because we thought that no train trip around Europe would be complete without a full course meal in the dining car!
Beth: Kris, you liar.
Kris: So! How did it go, Beth? Oh, this was intentional! I would be lying if I were to say anything else!
Beth: You know what big spenders we are on our vacations.
{laughs}
Beth: And we just had some Italian ride with us for three hours and then ask us what our insurance company was. {laughs} And we...we...I didn't know how to say "State Farm" in Italian, so I just looked like I didn't understand him.
{laughs}
Kris: Hello! Myself, I thought that was a bit personal for people you just met on the train, so...I too, feigned a lack of Italiano.
{laughs}
Kris: I mean, who is it for them to ask me who my insurance company is? I don't even tell my parents that kind of thing.
{laughs}
Kris: So, h-how did you enjoy your dinner, Beth?
Beth: Um...It WASN'T Campbell's soup.
Kris: I thought the spaghetti was Campbell's soup at the...
Beth: Yeah, but it wasn't gross.
Kris: But it was not the main course, it was ahhh...Spaghetti al Ragu {laughs} Like, auhhh, Ragu and Prego. Gosh! We have two very familiar sounding products at home. Also related to spaghetti. {laughs}
Train Speaker System: {Italiano...}
Kris: Oh, sorry. We're listening to the...
Train Speaker System {more Italiano}
Kris: Okay! Well, you heard the man.
Amsterdam
Kris: We're in Amsterdam after having slept for twenty-one hours. Okay, so we read for a little bit of that time but not much. Ooooo, I found a fifty-pfennig in my pocket. Don't want that. And we're sorting through change already to see what change Kris has to bring Doug back from THE NETHERLANDS. Beth feels really good. Here she is!
Beth (pathetic): Hiiii.
Amsterdam, another day
Beth: I feel much better today. Thank you for asking.
Kris: I have an entire litre of Bitter Lemon and I'm really happy. Checking to see if...
Beth: {garbled}
Kris: We did! Let's see...for breakfast we had fried eggs and bread and bread and bread and toast and bread. And Beth had tea and I had lukewarm coffee. Aaaaaaand for...it was lukewarm. It was kind of sad. Uuuuummm, and today for lunch Beth had chicken noodle soup and salami sandwich.
Beth: {garbled} gingerale
Kris: Oh, and a gingerale. And I had a bowl of mushroom soup, which was really good. Cream of mushroom soup. {sniff} And a egg and cheese sandwich. No! It wasn't cheese {snafflge}, it was egg and tomato, and I really wanted just tomato, but I had to have the egg in order to get the tomato. So! Then we walked around, and went through the red-light district. Saw a couple women adjusting their bikini bottoms getting ready in their windows for people to come by. But since it was, like, three-thirty we didn't really see...shopping! Sex shopping! Sex tourist! Um, so we didn't see anything particularily exciting. So, anyway. I think tomorrow we'll do laundry and Beth wants to find the Hair Police. And we might do the boats. Canal boats. Is that about it for tomorrow, Beth?
Beth: Um, maybe some gay establishments.
Kris: Oh, and Beth might find the gay establishments. So, it sounds like tomorrow's gonna be a reeeeally busy day. So! Anyway, tune in tomorrow! Oh! Or later today. Or next week.
Still Amsterdam
Beth: Day twenty, Eurpean Hostage Crisis. {laughs} Beth and Kris and still alive. {laughs}
Kris: Okay. Don't mean to be a downer, but I was actually thinking today when we were watching "Heat" at the movie theater, "you know, once we got over the fact that we were trapped in Europe for another four days, it was actually nice relaxing kinda four days." {laughs} I ate three mysterious Febo brown things today.
Beth: {garbled}
Kris: {laughs} And Beth can't operate the garbage can.
Beth: {garbled} Last night, in the middle of the night, I woke up {garbled} and I threw it and it landed right in it, and I remember thinking, "Wow!", nothing {garbled} this entire time.
Kris: Wow! Well, so Beth, so what do you think of our last four days? All told, they didn't turn out too bad, did they?
Beth: I'm not sick anymore! {laughs}
Hotel Hortis, Amsterdam
{gross, sticky-gooey alien noises}
Beth: W'oh, we're eating! We eat breakfast every morning now. We'll probably be back up to our plump little selves by the time we get on the plane. {laughs}
Kris: No help from Febo.
To the tune of "I get by with a little help from my Friends":
Beth: I get by with a little help from Feboooo.{laughs}
Kris: I eat cheese {laughs} {garbled} from Febooo.
Beth: My stomach gets its greasy lining from Febooo.
Kris: I can't tell what I'm eating. I just know it comes out real hot. I can't smelllll what I'm eating.
Beth: But it kinda looks li-i-ke snot!
Kris (no longer singing): It did!
{laughs}
Kris: I wonder if that turned out? {laughs} Oh, man, I think I'm allergic to you, Beth.
{laughs}
Beth: I'm in charge of thermal control for this space shuttle. {laughs} It worked out real well last night {laughs}
Kris: Space Shuttle Hortis.
{laughs}
Beth: {sneezes} Maybe we were too noisy? It's only eight-thirty.
Kris: {garbled}
Beth: Only if you're stoned. It doesn't matter what time it is. {laughs} Um, we're just kinda rambling here, so, bye!
Beth: {garbled} Kris has a fatal skin infestation from this hostel. Doug! Just stay away from her! Just say away from her! Auuggggghhhh! It's coming. We're gonna dieeeeeeeee.
Pension Backer (maybe Pension Bruns?), Frankfurt
Beth: Day twenty-one. Hostage Crisis In Europe. {laughs} Looks like there's a break in the action. A full meal was finally served to us.
Kris (pathetic): We're so very happy we got some real food. Um...{sniffles} I'm just crying, that's all. {wimpers}
Beth: How's your underwear holding out, Kris?
Kris: Um, I wore my last pair of clean underwear yesterday. {laughs} So, you do the math. Um, okay. So...I'm confiscating one of these two deutschmark pieces. Oooooo, nineteen forty-eight. Wow. I dunno, a nineteen eighty-eight, I don't know what that forty-eight's from. {sigh} Um...
{crunch!}
Kris: Oh! We've had a crash!
Still at the Hostel?
Beth (singing): We're going home today! We're going home today!
Kris (singing): {garbled}
Beth: Is there any vacation tape we have without the Budweiser theme song on it? {laughs}
Kris: {garbled}
Beth: Yes, at the very beginning of our Going-Out-West tape.
Kris: Not out East.
Beth: Oh, we didn't make, make a tape.
Airport, Frankfurt
Beth: Hi. We're at the airport. We still have tape left. And after twenty-one days of traveling...twenty-two! Twenty-two days of traveling together in how many {garbled} countries?
Kris: Oh, gosh.
Beth: Ahhh...nnnnn...Germany, France, Italy...Austria, Hungary...Netherlands...
Kris: Do we count Munich as a city we went to?
Beth: Sure!
Kris: Because we changed...
Beth: Sure! So we've been in six countries. And about six different kinds of currency. And after all that, I owe Kris...
Kris: Six dollars and fifty-nine cents, Amderican. {laughs} This is after a Visa cash advance, traveler's cheques, changing Lire into, Amster...to, ah, Netherland Guilders...{laughs}
Beth: Buying sixty chocolate bars...
{laughs}
Kris: Eating at the Thai restaurant. Oh...thank God.
Airplane
Beth: {garbled} interfere with the navigation systems of the airplane.
Kris: Yes. Terrible! Terrible!
Kris: Ahhhh...there...here we are looking at the instructions for filling out the I-94 card for immagration or entrance of visitors to the States, I guess. Do not remove this form from the aircraft. Okay! There you have it!
Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport
Kris: Hi!
Beth: How lucky are you to be here, Kris?
Kris: Heeee heeeee. Heeeee heeeeeee.
Beth: Does it make you really laugh?
{laughs}
Kris: {whine} We're hoooommme. We have no luggage, AGAIN.
Beth: Bye!
The End
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