Writhe and Shine

From Writhe’s journal:

I’m watching this gold statue/robot guy in the park who is getting a shitload of money. All he does is bow when someone puts money in his bucket. Shitloads! Tons!
I checked out of the hostel today and went to the internet cafe and got a message from W in Bristol, but not a peep from anyone in New Orleans, and certainly nothing from Anke. I was really hoping to hear from her after the debacle in Berlin. I’ve sent her a few messages and almost sent her another, but I heard Shine’s voice in the back of my head saying that I should just leave it alone. I’m going to try to enjoy the rest of my vacation as along as it lasts, however long that is.
I went to a couple of the stores I saw yesterday. They were okay. One had lots of cool clothes and theater costumes. Now I’m waiting until 4pm to call T again to find out what’s going on.

T said on the phone that we would have to wait until the weekend to have a net.goth meet up with all of his. I asked him about sleeping arrangements, if he knew of anywhere I could couch surf for a few nights. He told me to call him again at 9 so that he could see what he could do. Now what do I do with 5 hours and my full pack?
I ate from a grocery store and spent some time trying to entertain myself in the park next to a large South American band. I fed some pigeons in the park and did some heavy thinking. Life is like feeding pigeons; it seems you have nice friends until you get shit on.
I call T again at 9 after spending an hour or so at the train station watching people and dozing off a bit. He says I can stay at his place. I get there by public transit and we stay up until about 1am talking about how the scene is in different parts of Europe and in the US. We showed each other photos and listened to a ton of music. He is one of the main promoters in the small Norwegian goth scene.
The next day he takes me to a few clothes stores and an excellent record shop run by his friend. We wait until 2 when another friend who is in a local band comes in. He hands me one of his CDs for free. We all go to Vigeland Park with tons of plain-looking statues. I run into the two girls I met in Amsterdam. It starts to rain, but we only get wet carrying our grocery bags from the train station to T’s house. We eat dinner and watch some cartoons and a DVD of Rowan Atkinson with T’s roommates. We get dressed up and go to So What at 9. He is one of the only punctual goths I’ve met. We drink snakebite and ciders in a run down alternative club with wobbly chairs and tilted pictures on the walls the guy from the band shows up and says that he won 8000k in the lottery. Then four girls show up and we move tables together to chat. They were all very interested in talking to me which was really nice. We moved downstairs to the club part of So What and easily find a table. It kept getting more and more packed as the night went on. Very mixed crowd. One of the girls thought that I said it was very hard to drink an American under the table, but I had actually said the opposite in a cracking and failing voice. They kept buying me ciders and I got pretty drunk. So did they. We danced to two songs and played with matches. Left the club when the music stopped, then ate at a kebab place. Waited in line for a taxi for a long time and enjoyed watching the drunk goths act strange with each other. It seemed like a tightly knit and friendly community. Something I wish we had in New Orleans. “I’m going to turn you into a frog!” said one of us to a normal person.
We are all supposed to be going to some strange mausoleum today, but we all got too drunk and stayed out too late. We were rushed out of the house this morning and I need to wash my clothes. I’m on my way to Bergen right now and this train ride is fun except for this kid with a noisy toy.
I really wish I could stay longer in some of these places.