Extracts from my life

[S and G]

Hey folks, I have recently done a bit of writing about some of my experiences while travelling, and some of the more interesting situations I've found myself in. Below are a couple of pieces. I hope you enjoy them. Please leave feedback.

Also, the second one is a bit naughty so don't read it if you are easily offended. Both of these are completely true.

Scotland’s Fastest Housefly​

My sister Robyn had long suffered from a bad case of itchy feet, brought on mostly by her unplanned pregnancy at the age of 17. A workaholic and chronic worrier, she was in a perpetual state of anxiety. Well, that’s a slight exaggeration, but she’s the only person I’ve ever known with the exception of my gran who gets worried about not having anything to worry about. When mixed with a thirst for learning and a brilliant academic brain, this is a deadly combination, and Robyn was destined for great things at university. As it happened, she gave birth to her son, Joshua Dylan, around the time she should have been midway through her second year course of Sociology and History at Glasgow’s University of Strathclyde. This took a heavy toll on her emotionally as, like many people in a similar situation I would imagine, she felt that her life was now bound by certain limitations and would be for the foreseeable future. One of these limitations was her ability to travel and spend any length of time away from Josh. It would be no surprise then that the desire to travel would always be hovering somewhere near the front of her mind. So, like the thoughtful big brother I am, I decided that I would give her a taste of what it was like to get away and share in one of my adventures. This was in September, 2010, almost 2 years after Josh had been born.

Within the previous 12 months, I had spent time in Norway, England, and the Netherlands, as well as that fateful trip to California, so it was determined that we should go somewhere that neither of us had been and somewhere that would be cheap to get to. Not necessarily in that order. Rome, Italy was our final selection, and I set about booking our city break. A general rule of mine when travelling alone is to deliberately not organise myself particularly well and just go with the flow. I find that you encounter far more interesting people and far more funky situations that way, and I have yet to sustain any serious injury from this method. I have, however, often narrowly avoided heavy fines or missing my transport. I felt that this nonchalant approach was not best suited to a holiday where I would also be responsible for my sister, so rigorous preparations such as signing us up for a ‘skip-the-line’ tour of the Vatican and even checking the airport train timetables in advance were made.

As is customary for my adventures, it was not long before something bizarre happened. Our flight was with Ryanair so it was to be expected that flying from Glasgow to Rome was a bit of a broad definition. The low-cost Dublin-based airline is notorious for getting you to roughly the area you want to be in. By rule of thumb, the airports they use, which of course allow them to remain low-cost, tend to be in the same country as the specified destination. You can’t really complain, though. Any airline which sells flights at cheaper prices than the cost of checking-in luggage is okay in my book. Ryanair’s ‘Glasgow’ airport is in fact located in the Ayrshire town of Prestwick on the West Coast of Scotland, a little more than 40 kilometres outside Glasgow as the crow flies. Sadly, that expression is not well suited to Scotland, particularly Ayrshire, as the harsh Atlantic winds forbid birds of any kind flying in a straight line. Anyway, I was delighted to discover that Ciampino Airport actually lies just beyond the city limits of Rome, and is one of the least troublesome in Ryanair’s European network. The overall winner of the least troublesome award surely goes to Sweden’s Landvetter Airport. Not only is it a short drive from Downtown Gothenburg, you can barely even notice that it is essentially a converted shoebox.

Boarding our evening flight to Rome, Robyn and I received a tap on the back as we sauntered across the tarmac to the plane. It was Jacqui, a girl who lived a few doors down from the house we grew up in and was a best friend of Robyn’s for many years, wrapped in a luminous green visibility jacket which was about 5 times too big for her, causing her to look like a radioactive Michelin Man. We were surprised to learn that she would be working as an air hostess on this trip. Removing her coat as we entered the cabin to expose a dull blue uniform confirmed as much. This was the first time I had seen Jacqui since I was a teenager, and one of the most out-of-context chance meetings I think I’ve ever experienced. The kind of situation where it feels like one of the cogs in your brain has malfunctioned and is clunking clumsily against those adjacent to it, perhaps emitting a little bit of smoke. Much like a bad hangover. Random though Jacqui’s presence was on that flight, it was the actions of another which caught my imagination; a humble fly.

Sir Isaac Newton’s First Law of Motion states that ‘Every object continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line, unless compelled to change that state by external forces acted upon it.’ In the context of travelling in a vehicle of some sort, the physics applied to your body can best be described by imagining your body as part of the vehicle’s to an extent. As the vehicle accelerates, you accelerate as part of it, and when the vehicle slows to a halt, you slow as part of it. Even though, as far as you’re concerned, you have simply been sitting in your chair and haven’t moved a muscle. However, there are also other forces at work.

Take, for example, the situation of you being seated on a bus. As the bus begins to accelerate, you are also being accelerated from behind by the chair. If the bus stops suddenly, everything attached firmly to the bus will also suddenly stop. Everything that is not attached firmly to the bus will continue to travel at the speed they had been previously until another force, most probably a wall, will cause them to stop. This is why you should wear a seatbelt. The seatbelt connects you to the bus. It is also why your body appears to lean left when the bus turns right and vice versa. Until something stops it, your body will continue to travel in the initial direction while the bus changes to a new direction. But, I digress.

Imagine instead that you are on the same bus but have somehow chosen to float in the middle of it. Unless you are holding on to one part of the vehicle, you are completely independent of it, as is your movement. This means that any acceleration or deceleration of the bus takes place without the same forces applying to you. Therefore, if it accelerates to a speed faster than your floating figure is traveling, you will appear to move backwards until the rear of the bus eventually hits you from behind as you have not accelerated with it. However, if you are floating and seem to remain at the centre of a moving bus, it is because you are actually traveling at exactly the same speed but completely of your own accord. The same principals apply to a plane.

From my seat where I exchanged awkward but civil smiles with Jacqui each time she shuffled past me on the aisle, I noticed a peculiar movement to the side of me, followed by the tell-tale buzzing as something small and nimble zipped past my right ear. I followed the source of the annoyance and glanced down towards the armrest, finding to my surprise that I had been joined by a common housefly. Obviously this was one of the braver arthropods that had opted to see the world during its few weeks of life. Or maybe it had won a holiday. I watched it for a few minutes as it darted aimlessly around the armrest, stopping only to ready itself before it took to the skies. Although, in this case, it was a bit higher than usual, by around roughly 37,000 feet. It would ascend, hover for a few moments, perhaps do a small trick, then return to its starting position. This repeated five or six times before the fly grew frustrated by my clear lack of applause or encouragement, then disappeared from my life forever.

The whole event left a lingering sense of having witnessed one of the world’s tiny but remarkable feats. At the time, we were aboard a Boeing 737-800 craft with an average cruising speed of 583mph. This meant that the fly, while on the armrest, belonged to the physical body of the plane much like all the passengers, and also moved at that speed. However, when it took off into the air, it was no longer attached to the plane, thus moving independently. For those few seconds, that insect was travelling, on average, at 583 mph on its own, and was Scotland’s fastest fly.

Now, let me tell you, I have flown on some interesting flights in my time. Long flights, short flights, domestic flights, intercontinental flights, flights that have dropped suddenly, flights that have needed a second try at landing, and even flights that have been struck by lightning. But none have been a touch on how scary this one was. The final hour bouncing over the warm air pockets of late summer, and particularly our descent over Italy’s northwest coastline, was the airborne equivalent of the teacups ride at a gypsy fairground operated by a Parkinson’s sufferer. Though, probably much more safe. With my stomach tickling the roof of my mouth, a whirlwind of thoughts raced through my mind, and I recalled fragments of information taken from the teachings of legendary Scottish comedian, Billy Connolly, and of fictional cult hero and soap salesman, Tyler Durden.

In the event of an emergency, oxygen masks are released for passengers. These masks are not primarily for the purpose of breathing, but instead that pure oxygen gets you high, thus accepting your forthcoming doom. The so-called ‘brace, brace’ position that you will always find on those little instruction cards, the ones that are for light reading only as the chances of you actually paying attention to what they say in the event of a catastrophe are understandably slim, is not in any way, shape or form for your safety. In fact, it is both merciful and methodical. As explained by Newton’s First Law of Motion, upon impact, your body will move forward while the plane is brought to a sudden halt. As your head smashes against the seat in front, your neck will snap, offering you a quick and relatively-pain-free demise. In addition, this style of mass euthanasia also keeps your teeth inside your skull, making it infinitely easier for the authorities to identify you. But, as the Big Yin used to say, “You always hear about the guys searching for this indestructible black box after a crash, so why don’t they just make planes out of the same material?” The statistics of being 80 times less likely to die on a plane than in a car did little to comfort me, but I nevertheless put on what I thought was a brave face for the significantly-less experienced Robyn.

So There I Was...​

So there I was, a mostly-guzzled glass of Jack Daniels bourbon and coke in my left hand, and the limp belt of my traditional Scottish kilt ensemble in my right. I swayed slightly, the intoxication having made a respectable attempt at relieving the muscular tension in my bare legs. I say bare, I actually still had on a single sports sock. A shimmering reflection caught my attention in the bedroom window a few feet in front of me. My eyes took a moment to focus, and I recognised that it was the lamp light rebounding off the silver buckle of my belt. Outside, the distant orange glow of the Norwegian town of Leirvik lay beyond a shroud of cold and silent September darkness. I saw a thin strip of purple hovering above it, outlining the peaks of the snow-capped glacier mountains of Folgefonna National Park. The buckle flickered again, swinging aimlessly in my semi-jellified arm.

I looked down onto the small bed above which I towered, frowning slightly as the young woman stared back in anticipation, clothed only in a flimsy set of black furry handcuffs. The kind of handcuffs that you can imagine being part of a bondage Barbie play set. Though, for some reason she, or maybe even I, had tied them to a piece of bedframe that probably would snap in half at the first un-orchestrated movement. My gaze shifted lazily from her large stiffened nipples to the kilt of Royal Stewart tartan around my waist, a mostly-blood-red colour with prominent lines of blue, white and yellow, usually the one offloaded to ignorant tourists in the form of comedic See-You-Jimmy hats, to the unfinished bourbon, and back to the nipples. Without changing her expression, the girl rolled over onto her knees, bearing her ghostly-pale naked rear to me, wordlessly begging for my next move.

I inhaled deeply, suddenly realising I had not taken a breath in quite a while, and washed it down with the remainder of my drink, bending to gently place the glass beside my castaway sock on the wooden floor. It was now or never. Hesitantly and without experience in such matters, I raised my belt like a whip over her eager body, once again distracted by my reflection in the window. My elevated arm cast reaching shadows over the cramped bedroom, and across my broad hairy chest. As it passed over my face, I was awoken with a strong sense of clarity. Like those moments in life when you learn something truly awful, rendering you alert and feeling like you have just been dragged callously from the hazy dream that was your day-to-day routine. I was far from home. In the basement apartment of a girl who was little more than an acquaintance. Dressed in the unbeatable combination of a kilt and a sock. And, against my better judgement, about to strike her half-heartedly with a makeshift sexual apparatus. I could but wonder, “How the fuck did I get myself into this…?”

The answer to this question actually lies in a simple act two months before which consisted approximately of 30% goodwill and 70% saving money, and involves a teenage Irish couple, a shit-load of alcohol, a rock festival, and the possible existence of karma. But, I’ll get around to that. Eventually.

 

[S and G]

Hairy Gaijin in a Stockholm Hostel​

According to my watch, the flight from Tallinn to Stockholm had taken me a grand total of negative 15 minutes. Which, by anyone’s standards, is quite impressive. Until you factor in the time difference. Having been to Stansted only a few days previous, I was now well accustomed to the idea that not all airports were intimate affairs, and Arlanda did not disappoint. Unlike the glorified warehouse of Stansted, however, this airport was considerably more stylish with its pinewood floors, glass partitions, sweeping staircases, double-speed elevators, and furnishings that had Ikea written all over them. What I did not expect was the 100 kilometre hike to the baggage claim. Now, I understand the principal of having the baggage carousels located a significant walking distance from the arrival gate so that your wait at the end doesn’t seem so bad. Or at least, I assume that’s what the unending airport arrival corridors and staircases are for. Otherwise it seems a bit curious as to why authorities repeatedly opt to hire architects from the same impossible reality school as M. C. Escher.

Collecting my bags, I was stopped by customs officers who were curious to learn what a Brit was doing flying from Estonia to Sweden so late on a Thursday night. Apparently my application for ‘nothing to declare’ had been unsuccessful. My mind shot back to when I had been approached by a guard brandishing an assault rifle at Ioannis Kapodistrias Airport on the Greek island of Corfu so that he could enquire as to my favourite AC/DC song. Even the most basic of questions seem challenging when you are frozen with paranoia and guilt about some unlawful act you haven’t even thought about committing. Passing a policeman on the street is the most common cause of this ingrained fear, causing you to act out your best ‘innocent’ performance, all the while feeling the strain of their presence. Customs officers specialise in this. Only a seasoned professional can casually look a customs officer in the eye without a trickle of sweat meandering its way down the crack of your bum, and they know it. I have experienced this from their side to an extent while working as a telephone tax collector. Phone conversations can get a bit awkward when someone realises they are speaking with the taxman, quickly turning from an informal chat to a series of apologetic stutters, or the line goes dead. Usually in my case, though, if a debtor hadn’t done something wrong, I wouldn’t be speaking to them.

The officer pulled me to one side and asked me my name, nationality, and purpose for being in Sweden. Giving out false information would be pointless because not only did I have nothing to hide, two of the three things requested were easily obtainable by a quick glance at my passport. Which I was obviously carrying. I told him I was going to visit friends of mine in a town south of Stockholm.

“And what is the name of the town?” he asked.
“Em…I’m not really sure. I’m supposed to just phone them.”
“And this is your first time in Sweden?”
“Yes.”
“But, you don’t know where you are going?”
“I’m sure it’s called ‘King’ something.”
“Nyköping?”
“Yes.”

As it turned out, I was actually going to Jönköping. Fortunately, my ignorant “King something” response had satisfied him that I was smuggling neither drugs nor weapons, and that I wasn’t a threat to anything but my country’s reputation, so he sent me on my merry way. And by merry, I of course mean with pulsating heart, cold sweat and without the full use of my legs. I caught the Arlanda Express train to Stockholm’s Centralstationen.

In later years, I would discover that I have a fascination for coastal cities that have a lot of water around them. And I don’t mean the ones that just have a beach, I mean ones that have, through the nature of their design, incorporated dozens of canals around the city centre, such as Amsterdam or Venice. I’m not really sure why I feel this way. I think the water brings a freshness or sense of cleanliness, and particularly a touch of tranquillity, even though most of the time you’re likely to see something unpleasant floating in it. I’m talking about the kind of freshness that hasn’t existed on the River Clyde in Glasgow since the Bronze Age. In 2011, divers found an octopus in the Clyde, an animal which by any stretch of the imagination had definitely taken a wrong turn somewhere. Many people suggested global warming and a shift in the temperature of the Atlantic currents were perhaps to blame. I personally believe the poor wee bugger just got himself confused because he saw how black and murky the mouth of the Clyde was and assumed his pals were having an ink orgy further upriver.

The New Zealand capital of Wellington is another favourite location of mine for the same water-based reason, though more-so because its entire downtown arcs around a large enclosed bay of pristine turquoise overlooked by forested mountains. I say ‘mountains’, but they would be known anywhere in Europe as ‘hills’. I think the classification scale of the British colonies on such matters wasn’t quite accurate. Either that or in their rush to name the landscape, they realised that writing home to their financiers in London about the breath-taking lookout of Victoria Hill didn’t have quite the same ring to it Mount Victoria. Despite the fact that is less than 200 metres tall. But, that it completely irrelevant to this story.

Stockholm is a city made up of 14 islands, thus a joy for water-lovers such as myself, and is located on the south-east coast of Sweden. It lies on the Baltic Sea, gaining its prominence since the 13th century from maritime trade with other such major ports. In fact, for 150 years in the late Middle Ages, the Swedish Empire with Stockholm as its seat of power had grown so dominant in the Baltic region that it controlled territories in modern-day Norway, Germany, Finland, Russia, Ghana and the United States among others. Many people believe that the first European to discover the Americas was Christopher Columbus in 1492 when he arrived in the Caribbean thinking that he had made it all the way to Asia. However, this is wrong by only about 500 years, as the Vikings of Scandinavia had unsuccessfully tried to settle in Canada at the beginning of the 11th century. Sadly, for me anyway, Stockholm wasn’t actually established until after the Viking era, so much of the money-spinning tourist merchandise for the capital displaying horned helmets and longboats is cheating a wee bit.

I had arranged with Hairy Andy, who was flying in from Glasgow, to meet inside the city’s main bus terminal. Lack of experience meant that I had not really bothered to find out where this was on a map. Now, as it happens, Centralstationen is quite a vast complex which supports Stockholm’s transport hub for trains, buses and the metro, and the very terminal at which I was supposed to rendezvous with my former flatmate was one floor above the platform the Arlanda Express sidled into. However, I was unaware of this, so I immediately strode towards the nearest exit.

It was the middle of July, and not even a lack of clouds above the bustling streets was enough to bring a chill at this late hour. There was a bit of a party vibe going on, with young men dressed to kill and young ladies dressed to get stared at. These were the types of girls whose outfits revealed more of them than a personal questionnaire, but would brand you a pervert should your gaze show even a hint of lust. Damn them. Damn them and their sluterous ways. At the corner of Vasagatan, I spotted two doormen welcoming such ladies into a bar, and decided it would be a smart move to ask for directions. They saw me coming, slightly flustered, the drone of my suitcase’s wheels melting into the sounds of the traffic.

Drawing near, a thought struck me; would these guys even speak English? The answer, it would appear, was that like the vast majority of Sweden’s 9 and a half million population, they had learned my native language from a young age, and were reasonably fluent. So when I asked them if they spoke English, they looked at me like I was possibly retarded. When my follow-up question was for them to direct me to Centralstationen, the building that they had just watched me emerge from, they frowned at me like I was incontrovertibly retarded. With the slow and patronising speech of someone undecided as to whether or not it was morally wrong to allow me to wander off unsupervised, one of the doormen pointed me towards a nearby bridge and raised street level that would lead me to where I wanted to be. I found Andy about 90 seconds later.

Following my own scribbled instructions on the back of a printed email, we set off in the general bearing of our hostel. As we marched along the pavement, something immediately caught our attention, an observation which could really only have been made so sharply by a mono-cultural pair from a new Scottish town and a rural island respectively. When you imagine a stereotypical Swedish individual, your mind throws up adjectives that curiously all begin with the letter ‘b’ such as ‘big’, ‘blonde’, ‘beautiful’, ‘blue-eyed’, and ‘bearded’. Basically Claudia Schiffer, except for the beard part, who is the first person many people think of. Which is silly, as she is German. In reality, however, the ethnic makeup of Stockholm is far more diverse; almost as diverse as you would expect to find in the major cities of former Imperial Powers such as London, Amsterdam or Lisbon. Half of the youths we passed seemed to be of Asian or Middle Eastern descent which, as it turns out, stems from a massive boom in population during the second half of the 19th century when immigrants arrived to find work in the thriving economy, and less than 40% of Stockholm’s residents had been born in the city.

I have often wondered if this has anything to do with the presence of a small number of Nazi sympathisers which occasionally get Sweden bad press. The country caused a bit of controversy during the Second World War as, despite remaining officially neutral, supplied Germany with the majority of its iron ore while rejecting visas to individuals fleeing persecution, allowing the Nazis to continue their war effort and condemning thousands to the horrors of the concentration camps. Though I’m sure the politics are involved somewhere along the line, I have a sneaky suspicion that Hitler’s propaganda about an Aryan race, which essentially just describes the Swedes and ironically not himself, played a large role in the rise of the movement’s popularity.

One of the other odd things I noticed about the non-stereotypical Swedish youths was that they all seemed to congregate outside the 7-Elevens that were to be found on every block. 7-Eleven is an American convenience store chain, now the largest international franchise in the world having surpassed even fast food powerhouse McDonalds, and has taken over Scandinavia in recent years. They are honestly everywhere. I cracked a joke about opening a shop next door that sold goods such as leaking bottles, t-shirts without a neck hole, fireproof matches, and soggy toilet paper. I would call it an Inconvenience Store. Andy just stared at me blankly.

We found the hostel swiftly and without much fuss, somewhere in a dimly-lit alley near a downtown parking garage. Incidentally, like the mature adults we were, we found the glowing neon signs above the entrance and exit terribly funny, respectively reading ‘Infart’ and ‘Utfart’. As we would be arriving around midnight, the hostel reception had emailed me to give me entry codes for the doors and strict instructions to remove outdoor shoes before entering. This was in respect of their desire to make the place as welcoming as possible to their primarily-Japanese clientele. The lobby was like the waiting room of a dentist surgery, compact, sterile and smelled faintly of bleach. We found the reception desk to be vacant and, having a quick look around to see if we could locate a member of staff to check in, made our way downstairs to the spacious lounge area which was deserted but for a Japanese couple talking quietly between themselves. Our presence seemed to startle the pair, and I got the impression that our physical appearance did little to help that.

At the time, I was 21-year-old boy with the look of a man whose mother had regularly washed his face with sandpaper as a child. I’d once borrowed I.D. from a colleague of mine who was 8 years older than I was so that when I was sneaking into nightclubs at the age of 17, I was actually passing for 25 which, in hindsight, isn’t really something to be proud of. I had the last laugh, though, as he was a handsome devil. I would bear only a thin growth of stubble over the course of that weekend in Stockholm, but Hairy Andy on the other hand was a man who deserved his epithet. Since the night I first met him, when I was setting the record for projectile vomit down the steps of a Glasgow tenement stairwell, I could probably count on one hand the number of times I saw him without substantial facial hair. And I lived with the guy for over 2 years. He can only be described as a young lumberjack, having grown up on a farm with a mother who taught him the ways of heavy metal, heartily going about his manly deeds clothed in ripped jeans and t-shirts that took retro fading to a whole new level.

His jaunty spring from the bottom stair of the colourful lounge onto a nearby stool, and removing the bottle of vodka from his bag in the same motion rendered the Japanese couple fear-stricken. If they were afraid of bearded men, why did they come to Sweden? Surely that’s got to be up there with going to a gay bar when you are homophobic? I mean, if your surname’s Dumpty, don’t call your child ‘Humpty’. It’s just common sense. Also, for anyone who’s interested, I still hold the Glaswegian record for projectile vomit to the best of my knowledge which is an incredible 11 steps and round a corner. Sadly, I will never really be able to claim my award as a Chinese friend of ours got the blame of it.

Blatantly disobeying the one rule that international hostels tend to insist upon, we starting drinking alcohol on the premises. Lots of it. Around us, the space-age furniture of brilliant red and white gave the impression we had somehow stumbled into an artistic purgatory, patiently waiting to be seen by the authoritative powers who would decide our fate for all eternity. Several doors ran the length of an adjacent corridor, each controlled by an electronic numerical lock. We sporadically checked to see if the receptionist had returned to the desk, but to no avail. Instead, we entertained ourselves on Youtube by watching videos of the two things you would have expected us to on our first night in Stockholm; the genius that is Henrik Larsson, Swedish footballing legend of my beloved Glasgow Celtic, and animated animals battling one another to the death. The latter was something that we stumbled upon by accident, becoming engrossed as our veins pumped with vodka and lemonade with epic imaginative standoffs such as lion versus tiger, anaconda versus walrus, and hippopotamus versus crocodile. We had bets on each fight as to who would win, and imagine my shock when that hulking hippo chomped the bookmakers’ favourite champion reptile in half. I later found out that hippos cause far more human fatalities each year in Africa than lions, elephants, crocs or great white sharks due to their aggressive nature, massive teeth and the secret ability to run at speeds of up to 20mph.

By around 4am, we were both feeling a bit worse for wear, and the novelty of the animal mêlées had long since worn off. In a drunken haze, I stumbled up the steps to reception for the penultimate time that night and, yet again finding no-one present, went to investigate their possible whereabouts. The lobby had only three doorways other than the main entrance; one with a window looking into a darkened office, one which turned out to be a cleaning cupboard, and one which opened into a vast dorm room lined with creaking metal bunk-beds. Even from the thin strip of light slithering from the doorway, I could see that the lower bunk nearest me was unoccupied. A more thorough examination revealed that this was the only vacant bed in the entire dorm.

Shuffling clumsily downstairs, I explained to Hairy Andy that despite the hostel reception seeming to have known what they were doing during our email exchanges, their absence and preparation of only one bed between us was like a wicked taunt. In my already-clouded mind, I pictured a gang of staff members hiding in the office, eating digestive biscuits and giggling hysterically to themselves as we grew gradually more intoxicated and likely to succumb to the circumstances. Andy was unimpressed but, with the air of a man who had endured far worse situations than cuddling up next to an old friend, gave a surrendering shrug, and followed me back to the dorm.

If you have ever witnessed a suspension bridge swaying wildly during an earthquake or serious storm, as it’s designed to do, you will know exactly the sort of movement the frame of the bunk-bed made as we clambered into it. The person on the top bunk must have been absolutely crapping themselves or, at the very least, seasick. The mattress was barely big enough for an individual never mind one tall and one rotund Scotsman. Still fully-clothed so as not to encourage any misunderstandings, Andy gave me a silent nod; the kind of telepathy that only exists between men who have already shared in some weird and wonderful experiences. I closed the privacy curtain and we went back-to-back.

LIGHT! I woke with a start, panicked and disorientated, confused by the sight of the pale blue underside of the mattress above me. I couldn’t feel my right arm. Looking down, I discover it had managed to ‘somehow’ sneak beneath Andy during the night. I groaned as I yanked it free, instantly closing my eyes again in the discomfort of my throbbing hangover. My brain was swelling and pushing against the inside of my skull, with segments protruding from my eyes and ears. My throat was filled with sand, my muscles had deteriorated, and my bladder had been pumped full of a liquid that was now far more acidic than pee. I quickly became aware of a hubbub of chatter beside me, but I wasn’t sure if it was in another language or if my inflamed brain simply wasn’t recognising the words. Emitting what can only be described as a stifled moo, I pulled back the curtain to see what all the fuss was about, and was met by a wall of instantaneous calm.

About two dozen Japanese had brought their conversations and varied activities to an abrupt halt, turning to stare at the tiny bunk from which two furry Gaijin had somehow managed to infiltrate their sanctuary. Men and women just stood there, unfolded clothes in the hands, toothbrushes sticking out of their foamy mouths, cowering behind one another as if we carried with us an ancient curse. It was like a scene from those Wild West movies when a stranger enters a saloon, and all the grubby moustached locals look up from their beer steins and poker games to watch intently as the either confident or terrified loner walks slowly towards the bar. If a piano had been playing somewhere in the dorm prior to this moment, the song would have been killed dead. All that was missing was the tumbleweed. Andy was only just coming to at this particular time, groggily trying to work out why we were now the main focus of the room, and his immediate thought must have been that I could only have achieved such tension by indecently exposing myself.

“Hullo,” was about all he could muster to try and dispel the awkwardness, accompanied with a sloppy wave.

Nothing stirred, and only a faint whining whisper could be heard from the far side of the dorm. As the seconds dragged one, I grew increasingly more self-conscious of my race. Living in the West of Scotland, there are of course ethnic minorities, particularly from the Middle East and Asia, but to nowhere near the same degree as in other parts of the United Kingdom or Central Europe. In fact, at the turn of the 21st century, only 2% of Scotland’s population were non-white. For the first time that I can remember, I was no longer part of the crowd when it came to skin colour, and the first seeds of comprehension were sown about how my minority friends went about their daily lives. And then it hit me. The Japanese weren’t gawking because we were white, they were gawking because they thought we were gay. Though homosexuality is not illegal in Japan, it is still a taboo subject, much like tattoos as I would find out a few years later in a bathhouse in Osaka, but for very different reasons.

Realising that we had ruined everyone’s morning in a way that will never fully be explained, Andy and I hastily rolled out of bed and scurried into the lobby where we finally found the receptionist. Obviously with the unmistakeable musk of alcohol emanating from my entire body as I approached the girl, I knew it would be hard to be taken seriously as I suggested my displeasure at having to curl up in a less-than-manly manner with my fellow hosteller, but I attempted it regardless. She took a moment, her gaze shifting suspiciously between me and Andy, before a smirk began to form on her lips.

“So, you both slept in the same bunk?” the receptionist sniggered.
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you sleep in your designated beds?”
“We didn’t have designated beds.”
“Didn’t we email you with your room code and bed numbers?”

Yes. Yes, they had. Not only had they emailed the password to the electronic locks to me, I had written them down next to the directions to the place. And the information in question was currently nestled in the tiny slot above the front pocket of my jeans, commonly known as your ‘johnny pocket’. Johnnies are condoms. Sadly, this was not the time to change the topic of conversation to condoms, especially with Hairy Andy breathing down my neck in quite an angered fashion for having fallen victim to my stupidity, and the countless Japanese faces that peered timidly out at us from their dorm, still thinking they had witnessed some low-budget form of biker Brokeback Mountain. The girl even had the nerve to tell us we had been “lucky”, as the resident who should have been asleep in the bed had not come back after a night of partying. Sheepishly thanking her, we officially checked in and paid, retiring to our correct bedroom to recover a bit more. Little did we know, the absurdity of this event was only a fraction of what was to happen over the next 24 hours.