Where In The World Is Miss Banana?

September 21st

Morning on the boat. Urgh. Miss Banana is hungover and thirsty.

Afternoon on the boat. Miss Banana sleeps and is grateful she is not riding the rough seas in this dinky boat.

Evening on the boat. Miss Banana is happy Germany is in sight.

Just so you all can get a better sense of where Miss Banana was, here is a photo of the TV GPS map. We disembarked around 10pm. Nakemiin (good-bye in Finnish), ferry boat.

Random fact: Did you know that with the exception of jerks in English speaking countries that the rest of the world calls Finland by its proper name, Suomi?
Right. Neither did I.

So...um...the three other museum folks and I were crammed into the most uncomfortable tiny Volvo minivan that sported some blue disco lights for the next 14 hours en route from Germany to Paris. This is perhaps my most favorite photo from the entire trip because it is absurd, blue, and my unlikely travel friends appear to be the Museum Mafia. And seriously, if you can't laugh in a situation like this, you are going to cry. We did laugh, but mostly because we rigged up a laptop and some Ipod speakers for showings of The Big Lebowski and Zoolander to help pass time.

This is a view of the disco lights from below. Why Volvo, why?

Two movies and two sleeping pills later, the trucks stopped for gas around 3am. Apparently we had driven through Germany and the Netherlands and were somewhere in the middle of Belgium.

The Belgian police decided that this was a good time to inspect the trucking log books and customs paperwork. This meant that we were trapped at this random gas station for an undisclosed amount of time. Did I mention it was like 3am?

Oh yeah, and did I also mention that this truck stop happened to be directly behind a poultry farm? Chickens or turkeys, it makes no difference. They both smell so incredibly...wait for it...foul. It was cold and so so so smelly outside, but I didn't want to be stuck in the tiny van any longer than necessary. So I compromised and knelt on the floor like this until we were able to leave.

Shortly after leaving the gas station I had a moment...a moment where I realized I was in a minivan with two Finnish security guards with bullet proof vests and guns, somewhere in Belgium, with three total strangers. This trip was totally bizarre.