The Couch-Surfing Dispatch

Washington, D.C. (Nov. 3, 2011) -- Nearly eleven months living out of a suitcase. That's what I've been through.
It's been almost one full year of constantly looking ahead to the next stop, planning the next jump, like the famous photograph of the guy out in the bay, ten feet above the water, jumping from piling to piling.
That's what it's felt like and that's what came to an end for me the other night as I hung up my clothes and unpacked my suitcase in my very own apartment here in the capital of the United States of America.
It all started in mid-December when I was already on the road -- in Miami -- when I learned that my time was finished at the newspaper over there in Paris.
Not wanting to go back to "The City of Light" to be alone over the holidays (yet again), I delayed my return to Paris a few weeks, to mid-January.
Even though I was unemployed, my new job was figuring out how I was going to transition back into life in states.
It had been easy moving across the Atlantic, with only two suitcases full of clothes, no friends, no commitments and no idea how to speak the language.
Coming back the other way would prove to be much tougher.
After the holidays I hung around Paris for almost all of January, cleaning out the apartment while also trying to get the cooperation of "the Velib people" as they would come to be known.
My idea had been to get 20 or so rental bikes, known as Velibs, and then station them around France. I would then ride these terrible and bulky rental bikes, which have essentially no breaks, along the 2011 Tour de France route -- and then, if I lived, I would write a book about it.
I approached the city hall about it and they loved the idea. Great publicity, they agreed.
But, they said, the problem is that we don't actually own or operate the bikes that are scattered all around the city. A major corporation, called JC Decaux (similar to ClearChannel) owns the bikes and they would have to sign off on it.
So I approached JC Deceaux with the same pitch; crazy American rides the 3,400-kilometer Tour on a bike that is designed to go about one hundred miles during its life span.
The wait for an answer lasted about a week before they came back with a firm 'no.' Their explanation was that they have lots of trouble with people taking the bikes and selling them out of the country or just plain stealing and vandalizing them.
No matter. Having never been to Asia before, I set off for a one month tour of South East Asia (not on a bike), visiting Vietnam and Cambodia between the middle of February and the middle of March.
All went well except for the return part of the trip. On my way back I changed planes in Moscow between Hanoi and Paris. I didn't have my French work visa with me and so I looked to the customs officials like I was going illegally to France for more than six months without a job. That's not really allowed.
I had a problem with this when I was leaving Vietnam. They almost didn't let me go. They finally relented, telling me that I could fly to Moscow but they might stop me there.
I had a bad feeling that the strict Russians were going to take my mistake and punish me for it.
In an effort to avoid that from happening I skipped a customs desk in Moscow where they were checking for work visas and documentation. Then I somehow blended in with a group of Asian tourists that the Russians didn't want to bother processing and I raced to my plane. Well, actually I stopped at the bar and had two beers and three cigarettes to calm my nerves and celebrate my having had thwarted a Russian victory.
Then I raced to the plane.
I wasn't entirely sure that I succeeded until our plane was floating safely above the frozen soil far below.
Once back in Paris I had a few days to shake off the jet-lag before my parents and sister arrived to attend my going-away party that was on a boat by Notre Dame. The party was a blast. We sang "My Old Kentucky Home" and we thanked all my friends for being my friends.
Then mid-April came up and, for the first time, I purposely closed the door to my apartment with the keys still inside.
So long to all that, I thought.
Never again would I stand on the balcony in the morning and look at the Canal St. Martin while drinking coffee.
Never again would I throw an egg from that same balcony late at night, aiming for the bright yellow mailbox down below and about 30 yards away. (I never did hit that damn thing.)
I would, however, return to 31 Rue Beaurepaire late one night in the summer. Bored and restless, some friends and I climbed up the ladder and onto the slick tin metal roof and into the cool night air just one more time for good measure.
The new tenants of my old apartment heard us up there and they came out and chased us off. "You're life here is over," one of them shouted at me as I came down the ladder. He was mad that I had left the apartment in a condition that required some cleaning up.
Fair enough.
As Hunter S. Thompson once said, “I knew it was wrong. I did it anyway."
But I digress. From Paris that morning in April I flew off to Kentucky for the Derby. I was only there a for few days before I flew to Washington, D.C. for a short stay. Then it was back to the Commonwealth just in time for Derby. Everyone is living out of a suitcase at Derby. That weekend is a journey for all, and much is learned along the way.
Then, a week after Derby, it was back to France to once again work on closing up the shop. But this time the goal was to find a job on a super yacht down in the south of France and work as a deck hand, swabbing the deck, witnessing sordid behavior, meeting famous people and whatnot. And then I'd write a book about it.
Surely mopping can't be that technical of work.
As it turns out, working on a yacht is in fact its own little industry and it requires certifications and CVs and confidentiality agreements. If you're name pops up after a Google search as a journalist, for the New York Times no less, then the odds of you getting a job are not very good.
But I had traveled down to Nice in search of my white whale of a job and so I figured that I might as well give it some time. "Some time" turned out to be a lovely and almost dream-like month or so in southern France.
The couple I stayed with, Jenn and Andi, were kind enough to let me hang around and sleep on their spare sofa for only the small price of Jenn getting me hooked on "The Bachlorette" reality TV series. (dot, dot, dot)
Andi worked early each morning and Jenn made her own schedule at her start-up company and so we would often spend afternoons taking drives along the coast to scenic villages or just to a wonderful French fry stand on the side of the road.
The road, keep in mind, plunged right off into the navy blue waters of the Cote d'Azur. And we would sit there and look at the yachts on the water and laugh about all the problems they must have with all that money.
But that all ended in mid-June when I decided that seeing my favorite band, The Walkmen, play in Paris was more important than working on articles about the super yacht industry.
And so I said my farewells to Jenn and Andi and their brilliant son, Coach Henry, and flew up to Paris.
I spent the summer there in Paris, living with my good friend Etienne, while I wrote a book about my time in Paris and some other adventures. To write the book in such a short period of time (about a month and a half) I used several volumes of journals that I had kept during my time in France and I also used lots of Red Bull and many cigarettes (I've since quit smoking).
I knew that I had to finish at least a good version of the book while I had the time, the setting and the ability to concentrate. My usual routine was to rise from my slumber at 10 or so, drink a Red Bull a little before noon, then get to work and continue as such (with maybe another Red Bull in the late afternoon) until Etienne arrived home from work at seven or so. That was my finish line.
From there I would call it a day and we would usually drink beer and play chess and listen to Led Zeppelin.
The book was done in by mid-August and I was left wandering around Paris feeling like I was overstaying my welcome. I said goodbye one more time to that sultry and elusive mistress of a city.
So it was back to Kentucky in late August. The plan was to settle down in Louisville and work with my father as a financial advisor.
I got very close to this happening before I decided that I was game for one more roll of the dice.
And so it was across the river and through the mountains of West Virginia to the city where I've decided to roll the bones once more, here on the eastern shore of what was once the New World.
The past is prologue, as they say.
I guess that the future will be the judge of that.
All I know is that it's been an amazing year filled with wonderful times with lots of friends and family. That being said, I'm also happy to be somewhat settled at long, long last.
Take care,
Brett