The River, the Railroad Bridge, and the Man with a Knife

The River, the Railroad Bridge, and the Man with a Knife

The air was so cold that it felt like my lungs would crack when I breathed. We were rushing from the car into the street. Four white-trash, teenage punks on a Friday night rampage. Out onto the icy blacktop of our Central Minnesotan wasteland. Into the freedom of...
A Waterman’s Homecoming and Near Death in Nosara

A Waterman’s Homecoming and Near Death in Nosara

It had been years since I paddled out. When I stepped out onto the beach in Nosara, Costa Rica, there were lines upon lines of gorgeous, glassy waves. Shimmering, blue, and peeling both to the left and right. I felt like a little boy getting ready to open birthday...
How I Became an American Ghost in the Czech Highlands

How I Became an American Ghost in the Czech Highlands

On my final day living in the Czech Highlands, yellow light from the train station hovered over the snow falling on the tracks. It was a cold December night, and my friends had kept me out drinking until the last train left Havlíčkův Brod at midnight. I found a car...
The Blue-Eyed Woman from Hanoi

The Blue-Eyed Woman from Hanoi

I went to Vietnam to surf and was forgiven for a war. My knees were bent and nearly touching my stomach as I sat in a small, red plastic chair. I was dripping with sweat and sipping a beer on the curbside of a corner bia hoi in Hanoi, Vietnam. Feeling like a...