From Belgrade to Amsterdam, Europe Tries to Kill Me
Europe has been trying to kill me for years, with the 3-inch rise into the bathroom, the 1-inch curb that blends into all the greyness of the sidewalk and street, the small step down that progressive lenses don’t quite catch. There was an uneven brick sidewalk in Amsterdam that pitched me onto my head, breaking my glasses. One day I tripped over a construction work in progress at the entrance to my building in Vienna, more grey tile with a new, elevated portion sticking out like a V toward the sidewalk. It wasn’t there before. In the bright sunshine, I walked by habit into the entryway and there’s this new outcropping? Andre the guy who sells Augustin in front of the Denn’s across the street rushed over and helped me up. My fall was cushioned by my rucksack, though the tomatoes did not fare well. The next day, another person would have tripped there but I grabbed him before he tripped.
The one that almost did kill me was in Belgrade, where a few steps leading up to the bathroom required the establishment of a new habit. Generally, one can turn away from the bathroom sink and take a step toward the door to exit. Here, the steps were directly behind me as I stood at the sink, so I needed to remember to turn around in place and then begin a descent down 3 steps. I did very well with that and did not fall down the stairs, but one morning, in walking across the wood floor toward the bathroom, my socks slid me and my left shin right into the steps. Huge bruise, lots of pain, 5 flights of stairs and no elevator. It took months to heal.
(I won’t even go into walking down stairs to the Ubahn with a mask and glasses and winter hat, glasses fogged.)
And here I thought I had managed to survive last week’s trip to Budapest intact, and let me tell you there were many, many opportunities for a disastrous trip-and-fall. I did trip once, on what I do not know, and almost took a header off some beautiful white tile stairs that were stairs, it turned out, not a flat floor. Still, I left the city unscathed, or so I thought.
Today I woke up with a surprise: a swollen, aching ankle and some pain up my calf. I have no idea how I got it. It’s a bit like that time in college when my foot twisted out of my 6-inch platform clogs, but feeling no pain, I went out to dance until the wee hours. When I went to get out of bed in the morning, my ankle wouldn’t hold my weight and I fell to the floor in pain. Such things are funny when you are 18, which I am not.
Yesterday, we walked to the bus, walked from the bus to the train, rode home on the train, and caught the U1 toward home. At home, took the elevator to the 4th floor. Maybe I was so delirious in 47C / 99F heat that I have completely forgotten twisting the ankle. Or maybe it was the hard landing onto my right foot as I kept myself from flying off those white tile stairs. I don’t know. My brain had turned to jelly in the heat, another fun thing that I'll have to get used to.
And now I learn that rest, ice, compression, elevation is all wrong. I’m supposed to move my injury. So off I will go, defying Europe’s best efforts to do me in. I promise I'll make a real effort to slow down and pay attention to where my feet are taking me.