journal.wiredreflexes.com

Last week they discovered that my mother’s lung cancer had spread to her liver, even though the cancer in her lung had become smaller during the chemo-therapy, which is indicative of how vicious it is. They gave us an early indication of how long she has to live, based on others in similar situations; one year. Considering how they thought my father had another six months to live, which turned out to only be twenty-five days, I’m preparing for the worst.

A little background information; in the spring of 2001, Eva was doing part of her internship in California, and because I knew Cash a little, and she was staying very close to where he lived, I introduced them, and they got on really well. I decided to go and visit Eva and Cash, and while were discussing the plan on IRC, Veed expressed his interest in coming along as well. We devised a plan in which I would drive up to Denmark, pick Veed up, drive back to Amsterdam, then fly with him from Amsterdam to San Francisco (by way of Zurich.) Sam, Dennis, my cousin Kim (who decided at the very last minute that she didn’t have anything to do that weekend and would come along) and myself hopped into a rented Alfa Romeo 156 and drove 8 hours to Arhus, Denmark. We had a blast that weekend, although the drive back was a little cramped having to squeeze five people in that car.

That was the start of many roadtrips to Denmark over the last few years. I can’t be certain how many, exactly, but I’m guessing anywhere between 6 and 8 of them. They’re absolutely exhausting trips, in which we drive for many hours, drink too much, sleep on a bench, floor, air-mattress, backseat of a car, or sometimes even rolled up in a piece of old carpet (don’t ask.) And then drive back. The parties were always incredibly memorable, and always a lot of fun.

This time around was no different. Veed had come over by plane last week and spent some time in Amsterdam, Jim had arrived on Friday, and we drove up, accompanied by Moulsari, to Denmark on Friday evening, starting around 20:00 o’clock. The car we got from Hertz was a brand new Volkswagen Jetta, with 12 kilometers on the counter, clean as a whistle and still wafting with that new-car smell. The drive over was pretty grueling, because everyone was very tired. Jim had only arrived that day and had managed a little nap in the afternoon, but had been up for a good 36 hours or so. Moulsari had a busy and stressful week at work, and Veed had been sleeping on my sofa for a few days, so wasn’t in the best shape either.

I had to drop something off at my mother’s, so we drove up to Hoorn first, and then left for Aalborg, Denmark. Jim decided to drive the first leg of the trip, eager to try driving with a manual transmission. Eh, he sucked, but quickly improved. It caused only one or two stressful moments and when we realised Germany was under construction that weekend, and we had to drive through different towns and cities, not being able to keep to the highways because some of them were closed, we decided to switch. I drove the rest of the way, and we arrived around 6 in the morning, if I remembered correctly. A nice 10 hour drive. Ugh. So we slept when the sun came up.

The next day we took our time getting ready, and left Veed’s apartment around 4 or 5, driving up north into the country. We visited some woods, a beach, had icecream, climbed a big wooden look-out, and talked about childhood trauma’s before driving back.

We got some groceries, Veed cooked dinner, and we had a bunch of drinks while talking. Veed’s sister joined us for a little bit before leaving for home, and we got ready to go out. After missing the last bus into town, we decided to walk there. I wasn’t exactly up for that, since I hadn’t gotten the luxury of sleep on the way over in the car, and hadn’t slept so well, waking up after only 3 hours of sleep, so I was kind of tired. Everyone made me shut up and suck the pain and we walked into downtown.

Downtown was crazy busy as we hit was is affectionately called Jomfru Ane Gade, aka “The Street”, in Denmark. It’s quite possibly the most famous nightlife hotspot in Denmark, if not Scandinavia, and it was insane. Binge-drinking country number one, England, can’t hold a candle to the debauchery in this place. We went to a heavy metal café where we “rocked out” to a bunch of songs I don’t know, a bunch of songs I do know, and had the worst mixed drinks in the world.

By this time, I had already had quite a bit to drink, and when I drink, I don’t sleep very well, and I was getting kind of worried I wouldn’t have any energy for the drive back the following day. I kind of took it easy a bit, but exhaustion started to overwhelm me. Jim and Veed didn’t seem to affected by it, but I guess the both of them had a lot more sleep than I did, both in the car, and during the morning at Veed’s apartment. At around 4:30, Mouls and I decided to take a taxi back to Veed’s, and Jim and Veed continued on, stumbling in an hour or two later.

Several hours later we woke up, got ready, said goodbye to Veed (always hard), who was nurturing a nice hangover, and hopped back into the car. The drive home was a lot easier, which was nice, because usually the drive over is easier than the drive back, and we talked a whole bunch about relationships, friendships and our childhood. We got back at around 23:00, doing the drive in about 9 hours this time.

Total amount of kilometers driven; 2231,2 km.
Thirty hours in Denmark (only a few of them spent sleeping while the sun was up); great fun!

Even our pets are dying of obesity-induced diabetes now! I keep telling my mother not to feed the pets any junk, and because of that, they aren’t nearly as bad off as some of the animals that I see being abused with cake and icecream. Seriously, what are you thinking feeding your animal food that it has absolutely no way of digesting properly? Why would you give it sugar-rich food, when it doesn’t have any enamel on its teeth? When was the last time you saw a cat track and hunt down a pint of Häagen-Dazs!? I mean…look at them!