Battle Scars

I'm deep in Euro territory now and the injuries are starting to stack up. My right foot is totally fucked right now. Struggling to walk on it the last few hours. Not sure what I did to it. It's funny the whole injuries thing. Seems almost every fellow traveller I meet is carrying some niggle or another. There's always someone who's got a chronic cold, somebody with a limp, somebody coughing out a lung. It's the way of things.

Me, I'm doing okay about it all. Rode the train into Köln from Amsterdam. My streak of strange encounters with mildly famous Australians on trains has continued: first the Howling Bells on the train from London to Paris, and today I was in the same car as The Umbilical Brothers. They were mildly amusing to observe.

Train had tech problems so we had to switch, end up stuck on a cold platform, eating the skin off my dry lips for a good half hour, and late getting in but what does that matter. Köln is a lot warmer than Amsterdam. Amsterdam was like ice in my underpants. Couldn't walk the streets it was so bad. Plus there's that foot thing.

Goes nicely with my other injuries: mystery burn scar on my hand which looks increasingly worse, my usual skin irritation thing on my hands which is in full swing now, stiff neck and my cracked up lips.

Köln is pretty cool. I'm glad that I got clean linen this time. I was on a bad streak til Amsterdam. Seemed every hostel I went to I had to sleep in somebody's shadow. What can you do? Maybe my luck is changing.

I'm glad to be out of Amsterdam. I loved it there but I need to keep moving and it's nice here too. And it's quiet. I need to chill out for a while, get my mind back. Start concentrating now that I've got some space. Need to get writing again and leave behind all the mixed up thoughts I had in Amsterdam.

Fuck this hostel for a joke.

If it wasn't bad enough with the snoring, the loudness, the inconsiderateness of other guests, number of beds to a room (14), the projectile vomiting off of the top bunk (yes, one guy caught the splash-back), the shortage of power points, the shortage of towels, the loudness of the music in the common areas, the closing off of the basement lounge and filling it with beds so as to make more money over the New Year period, the dictatorial staff who won't let you hang around the common area at night, the awful breakfast served way too early in the morning, the decision to paint all of the bathrooms in the building at the same time except for the one on my floor and the general overpricing, now these fuckers are charging people 25c for an EMPTY FUCKING CUP.

AN EMPTY PLASTIC CUP.

Fuck off.