Little-known facts about fire.

"We're gonna build something this summer." - The Hold Steady

In baseball, this is known as a change-up. I feel compelled to write a progress report, especially given that today marks my 40th day in Europe, since there's probably some symbolism in wandering for forty days and forty nights. But my writing is a little too flowery and hyperbolic for self-analysis, and since it's been a pretty amazing time, the last thing I want is to sound self-congratulatory. So instead, here are a few smaller musings from the first forty days. More utilitarian than anything. Consider this a sorbet between courses. Or the flicker of fireflies at dusk.

I lost 15 pounds in the first 3 weeks I was gone. A lot of this had to do with the stomach parasites I got in St. Petersburg that sent me to the hospital in Estonia, but luckily I've gained most of this back, and don't look quite so Emile-Hirsch-in-Into-the-Wild. On top of this, I was attacked by bed bugs in both St. Petersburg and Vienna, the blisters on the sole of my left foot are so multi-layered that it looks like a topographical map, and I have a 24/7 piercing pain next to my spine from my 28-kilo backpack. Just so you don't think it's all amazing foreign beer, priceless art, and exotic food.

In Barcelona, they are still constructing Antoni Gaudi's life's work and masterpiece of a cathedral, La Sagrada Familia. Construction began in 1882, and will not be complete until at least 2026. This is comforting to remember when I get down on myself for not being perfect at 26 years old. The night I came to this renewed peace of mind, I was at a 5-story club with five other people from my hostel. "Time to Pretend" by MGMT came on, and when the line "I'm feeling rough, I'm feeling raw, in the prime of my life" hit, we all made eye-contact that can only be described as feral, grabbed hands and sprinted to the dance floor.

I received one of the best compliments of my life last night, from a total stranger. I didn't begin talking to the 3 Dutch girls in my hostel room in Liverpool until after the lights were off, when we were all reduced to nothing more than voices in the darkness and ideas from a void. After discussing my travels so far, my plans that lie ahead, and a good deal of world politics, one of them said, "You have fire in your voice." According to her, this made me dynamic, even when I was nothing more than a sourceless sound. I don't know why, but I really like that.

I had the privilege of waking up the city of Warsaw. My overnight bus from Lithuania got in just before 5 a.m., and after dropping my bags off to a bleary-eyed hostel staff, I walked the length of the city's center (around 4 or 5 km), and was able to be alone with it's old town square and mermaid statue, the Chopin monument in Lazienki Park, the city's well-kept gardens. This only deepened and cemented my strong ties with the city, the paradoxical feeling of homecoming when I'm 8,000 miles from anywhere really familiar. Walking thru still vacant streets afforded me a few hours of meditation on where I was in my life, both geographically and emotionally. And as the rest of the city woke, I felt oddly proud of it, as if in observing it at sunrise I could see the potential it held that others would experience only later, in the hours to come. And don't listen to anybody, it's infinitely better than Krakow, which is essentially just a watered-down anonymous European city. There's not a ton to see in Warsaw, but it possesses a tangible sense of the Polish culture that Krakow lacks.

In Slovakia, 3 Italian backpackers I met made me a pasta dinner and were so disappointed with how it turned out (actually it was pretty decent), that they bought me beer all night to make up for it. And when I get to Milan, we may meet up again, as they promised they could do much better with fresh Italian ingredients.

Of the hundred plus buskers I've seen/heard, I've been tempted all of once to actually give a few cents, and that was to a couple in Riga playing an instrumental version of The Cranberries' "Zombie," with a really hauntingly prominent violin. In Paris, one gets nauseated from all the subway musicians. Trying to ignore the beggars however has been a bit harder, particularly in Eastern Europe. An elderly woman in Lithuania in particular, who had one exposed and empty eye socket, and crawled backwards on her hands and knees. You don't just shake off something like that.

One more note on Barcelona. Managed to get swine flu. So I had that going for me. Which is nice. Feeling basically back to better now though.

The closest that I will come to self-analysis, or a final grade on this progress report, is a recurring image I've had to propel me, a visual mantra for my travels. And it is either fiction or non-fiction, I'm not sure, although I know which one I want it to be. But it isn't my place to judge, just my time to continue.

Somewhere in Europe, there is a candle burning at both ends. But with every passing second, the flames inch farther away from one another, grow in size as they inhale, the oxygen nourishing what was once something that merely flickered in to a steady roar of heat that swells brighter, hotter. Still just flames on a candle, but ones rapidly becoming capable of providing warmth to loved ones, illumination to strangers, as potential is consummated. The wicks shake off the ash, their weave grows tighter, become a solid rope framework keeping the surrounding facade of wax balanced. The candle does not become extinguished in the four winds, rather amplified by them; where they normally snuff out a flame, here they work towards stoking it. And even when this candle sleeps, it wakes up stronger, more alert, hungrier for more.

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One last bit. I'm not actually keeping a private journal while I'm gone, not a detailed one, so this list is really more for myself than anything. But it's what songs have meant something to me in the places I've been. Arcade Fire at the Louvre, Radiohead in Warsaw, The Fling in Lithuania, Frightened Rabbit this morning in Edinburgh. A few people asked me to do something like this before I left, but it's not like I'm expecting everyone to start making a playlist or anything. Although it would be a pretty kick-ass one if you did.

Leaving
Muse - Starlight
Bright Eyes - Clairaudients (Kill or Be Killed)
Bright Eyes - If the Brakeman Turns My Way
Bright Eyes - Another Travelin' Song
The Kooks - See the World
Spoon - All I Got Is Me
Russia
Bloc Party - Pioneers
Bloc Party - Plans
Regina Spektor - Carbon Monoxide
Brazilian Girls - St. Petersburg
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium
Coldplay - Life in Technicolor II
Maximo Park - Russian Literature
Estonia
The Faint - Take Me to the Hospital
The Lonely Island - I'm on a Boat
Finland
Architecture in Helsinki - Like It Or Not (Version 2)
Snowden - Anti-Anti
Snowden - Dreams
Snowden - Between the Rent and Me (Captain Crunk Remix)
Brand New - Play Crack the Sky
Sigur Ros - the ( ) album, Untitled 4 specifically
Latvia
Kings of Convenience - Homesick
The Cranberries - Zombie (instrumental)
Poland
The Kills - Tape Song
The Hold Steady - Constructive Summer
Muse - Map of the Problematique
Austria
Rilo Kiley - The Good That Won't Come
Rilo Kiley - Better Son/Daughter
Germany
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Around the World
Editors - Munich
France
Foals - The French Open
Carla Bruni - Quelqu'un M'a Dit
Arcade Fire - Wake Up
Spain
Counting Crows - Holiday in Spain
Nappy Roots - Work in Progress
MGMT - Time to Pretend
The Decemberists - O, Valencia!
England
The Smiths - London
Arctic Monkeys - Crying Lightning
The Clash - Hateful