Hey..I guess I got it right…I couldn’t remember if it was Berckums or Berck!
Did you know I’m playing sax? Actually tenor, it pretty cool. I’m playing it
in jazz band and we’re really good. I suck at tenor but I just started. I
wanted to play alto but the school didn’t have one. You woulda liked jazz
band…its pretty fun. Lauren’s in it too..she also plays tenor. I’m
praciticing right now…the only problemis it cuts up my lips with my braces.
Well, I just felt so I good I needed SOMEONE to tell. (I’ve had a very good
two days) Oh yeah, we’re going on a field trip to that los colanes movie
studio place in a few weeks! Isn’t that right by your school? Mom might come
too and see you…I dunno yet. Well, I’ll talk to ya later.
Love ya,
Syd
PS there’s this really cool place in Virginia that wants me to apply where
you go in 9th grade and when you graduate you have a college undergrad and a
high school degree! Wouldn’t that be so ausome?
Letter from Syd (2)
I guess I guessed the address right since your reading this. I just wanted to
thank you for the CD. I love Sarah McLachlan! Thanks a ton! I thought Dad’s
gift was great, but I’m not sure what he thought of it. He just kinda smiled
really small. I guess that’s good. usually I could tell but everyone kept
jumping around and screaming and such! Well, I’ll see you later, I’m
exhausted. I haven’t slept a good sleep in weeks and last night I slept on the
couch cuz I feel asleep during the Braves game. Mom couldn’t find me in the
morning. I’m really, really mad cuz they’ve lost two to the Padres now. Well,
I’ll c-ya later.
Syd
Letter from Syd
Berck- I guess if you’re getting this I got your e-mail right. Thats good, since I spent time typing all this crap. Its 11 so I figure you’ll get on in a couple of hours and right me back. So my big brother is finally in college? Can’t believe it! AOL is crap, you can’t even use TAB to indent on e-mails. Too bad I haven’t gotten IE to e-mail correctly yet, I’m working on it. I’m also working on the network, with Dad. (I’m sure this is the LAST thing you want to hear about) But anyway, I figured we better work on it so we could both print and numerous other problems. First of all, Dad decided we needed to be sure of how the network ran. He was convinced that the way he had it figured out was right. Of course, while working on this I find the little labels you put on the cables. Dad wouldn’t believe that you could possibly be right! So anyway, I spent 2 or 3 days proving that you were, infact, right! :) We’ve done some tests and crap and were gonna try to replace the network card as soon as dad gets around to finding one. Kelsey said something about you hooking up the computer in the science lab?!? I never know if there is one bit of truth in Kelsey’s stories. If he doesn’t shut up about cars this and cars that I ‘m gonna hit him over the head with a 2×4! (THis is what dad always siad kels would do to you) Its nice having the upstairs to myself, not that I ever heard much from yuo anyway. Spots sleeping on my bed at the moment. He got his first taste of the huge, exciting world of the outside. (gasp!!!) Mom and I took him out, he spent almost the whole time under the deck. (Don’t ask me!?!) He followed us out again later and zoom-off to under the deck. He’s crazy, but atleast he’s feeling better. So you have finally entered the wonderful world of independence. Lucky you. Have you made any friends? Of course you are lucky since you already have friends, both older!! Do you feeel young since everyone is older than you? (Is everyone older than you) And you have real classes. Whoa!!! And I get to be stuck here with a bunch of nincompoops. That really is a classy word. Along with doofus. God I hate school, but man is ausome being on top of da school! and next year I get to be a fish. What a wonder ful thing to look forward too. I’m sure this letter has probably by now bored the crap out of you. (I’m actually half suprised your still reading!) But I have nothing better to do. You can stop reading now if ya want I’m sure I half nothing important to tell you, but since I have nothing better to do, I think I’ll keep on talking. Thats all I ever do anyway, but atleast now you can understand me. ;) I’m really running out of things to talk about. do you talk to Noell? She was chatt’n with Kelsey tonight online. Much to your disdain I’m sure, I read the Rainmaker. It wasn’t bad, just a page turner. Learned alot about the legal system. Saw the movie. Sucked. Except for Matt Damon(but his southern accent was way over done) Well, since I’ve run out of things to talk meaning lessly about, I think I’ll end this letter. I doubt you care about anyof this crap, since you never did before. I’ll tell spot hi, sinc eI’m sure he’ll understand. (Mom’s convinced he’s reading the newspaper-what’ll she ocme up with next?) Well, c-ya around, e-mail me back about any meaningless crap you wish. Buh bye my dearest brother. syd-its a good thing I learned to type or else it would be 3 in the morning!
Tuesday, June 23, 1998
Lost my pencil. Haven’t really needed it except to keep accounts because I’ve been too busy having fun. I wanted to get a nicer one, but I’m about out of money. Have to change some travelers cheques.
Yesterday was so wonderful. I hadn’t been planning to stay in Assisi more than one night but got talked into it. I’m now on the way to Roma with an American chick, a Mexican guy, and a fellow from Chile.
I got into Assisi when it was dark. The hostel book said to take the bus (didn’t give a line number, just a picture of a bus), so I waited at the bus stop with several other people. A bus came by, but the driver said he wasn’t going to the hostel. You’re going to have to watch out for me, I told God. After many minutes later, another bus drove up. “Ostello della pace?” I asked.
“Si!” he said slowly, smiling. I got on and took a seat. In Italy, you’re supposed to buy tickets for buses ahead of time, but at that time of night no place was open. A couple of Japanese girls stood near the driver, holding money and looking confused. At the next stop, they got off, but the driver motioned for me to come up to the front with him. He said a bunch slowly in Italian, drove a few meters, and then made an unscheduled stop. He pointed straight ahead and then to the right. I nodded and thanked him. I could have kissed him.
But once the bus left, I wasn’t sure where to go. I tried heading straight down the road, but it didn’t have sidewalks and did have a lot of traffic. After a bit, it curved off to the right, but that just appeared to go back down the hill. I turned around and headed back, turning into the open gate of what looked like a huge church complex. No hostel signs, but I walked around the building anyway in partial hope I’d find someone to tell me which direction to go.
I heard someone running behind me. It was one of the Japanese girls. The other one followed close behind. They asked me where I was going. “Oh! The hostel is this way!” they giggled. They led me back to the main road and straight through the curve to a small side road. They’d run couple hundred meters to come find me, but it’s a good thing they did. I never would have found the place by myself, and the hostel closed for the night at 11:30. We walked down a completely dark, narrow, winding road with fireflies blinking on either side. The stars were beautiful, the night was beautiful, and I had two Japanese guardian angels on either side of me to guide my way.
May 23, 1998
The subway doors slid closed too fast. There was nothing I could do but stare at the three Americans inside the metro car and wave as they slid away, slowly at first, then faster down a tunnel beneath the streets of Barcelona, Spain. So much for that great hostel they promised,
or more importantly, the company of three guys who shared my language and culture.
That day was the low point of my three and a half month trip backpacking across Europe by myself. I was lonely and homesick and second-guessing the whole idea of the trip. I tried not to cry while I lugged my pack over to the metro wall to study a map of Barcelona’s transportation system.
I’d met these three college-aged guys from New Jersey while standing in line for the attention of a Portuguese ticket agent, who was clearly more interested in going to lunch than straightening out the travel plans of backpackers stranded in Lisbon the opening week of the 1998 World Expo, when not a room could be found throughout the city. I had just arrived on a night train from Madrid but immediately wasted the next hour (of the eight I would spend in Portugal altogether) waiting for the opportunity to reserve a seat back out of the country. My fellow travelers and I passed the time in line exchanging travel notes. “You should definitely come to Barcelona. That’s where we’re headed tonight,” they told me.
After visiting an ancient fort and spending far too many Escudos on a couple of hours at the Expo, I made my way back to the train station and found the platform for Barcelona. To my delight, the three guys from the ticket office were in the same compartment. Matt, Gil, Evan, and I talked and joked around until we fell into the uneasy upright sleep of train travel. They invited me along on their search for that “great” hostel the next morning. I eagerly agreed, not because I couldn’t find my own place to stay or my way around a strange city’s transportation system…I was getting to be an expert at learning the words “train station,” “bus,” and “subway” in the language of any country I visited.
I agreed because, as much as I loved the freedom to go anywhere I chose, to experience the sights and smells and magic of being in Europe, I had come to the realization that I craved the companionship of people like me, even if they were as far away from my home in Alabama as…New Jersey?
Evan had been studying Barcelona’s metro map included in his copy of Let’s Go Europe throughout the night. We hit the metros just in time for morning rush hour. Getting off one line and hauling our packs to another, we crammed into a car full of people going to work. I climbed aboard last, only to have Evan shout, “No! Get off! This is the wrong one!” I hopped back off again just as the doors closed. Matt struggled with the door handle on the other side, but the doors didn’t budge. Helplessly, the three of them grinned at me through the glass as they disappeared down the track.
So I consulted my Hostelling International book and my AAA guidebook to Europe. I’d been too cheap to buy a copy of a real guidebook, a mistake and one of the many lessons I learned as a traveler. You can be as thrifty as you like, but if nothing else, invest in a good backpack, a good pair of boots, and the best guidebook you can find. The AAA guidebook didn’t have a map of the metro (assuming that you’d be exploring the city in a car), and its map of the city streets didn’t have the street of the hostel I wanted listed. But fortunately Barcelona is that rare European city that is laid out in a a mostly perfect grid, except for one wide road called “Diagonal,” and my hostel’s street was right off of it.
I found the hostel, stashed my rucksack, and spent the rest of the day exploring this city in which I’d found myself. I visited Gaudi’s cathedral and spent a while watching it be built. I perused an exhibition of sketches Dali did back in his cubist, Miroesque days. I found the Picasso museum, where, with all of his art laid out in chronological order, I finally GOT Picasso and what he was trying to get cubism to do.
It was in Picasso’s museum that I suddenly found myself surrounded by Americans. In fact, the place was swarming with them. “Where is the bathroom?” one girl around my age demanded of a museum staff member nearby. After being pointed the way, she attempted a legitimate use of her host country’s language, “Grass-ee-ass.” It took me a moment to realize she was trying to say thank you, but with no attempt at the proper accent at all. Stupid Americans.
I stopped by the Gothic cathedral and then left behind the tourists and lost myself in the walk back to the hostel, flowing along with afternoon rush hour traffic of Barcelonans eager to get home. This was experiencing the real Europe: watching businessmen in coats and ties comically donning helmets and mounting mopeds and scooters; being able to read none of the billboards; and hearing no American English. No obnoxious Americans. The magic of travel overcame me again. I grinned and knew I would awake with the same exhilaration I had for the past nine weeks:
I’m in Europe!