Seville, Spain
The world is a ghetto
hot and sweaty. There's no road rage here,
because if there were everybody'd be dead.
People are just like, "Ha, I'm cutting through
here. Is that cool?" Metal tanks driving the
streets. Armageddon. Rollover? Y2K? Yeah, it's
coming. Big guns. You'll see. Next stop,
Frankfurt. On to the European
continent.
on our
Seven-thirty AM February 14th. Valentine's
Day. We're on our way to Madrid. It's about
freezing temperature. It's kind of hard to
believe we just came out
of the armpit of the
fucking world and went right into the coldest,
darkest place on earth. We skated Alcobendas
darkest
yesterday. It was cold and slippery. Spain looks
yesterday.
a lot like California-big, vast, open. Scary.
What we're doing, I don't know. Why we're
going, we'll know when we get there. I miss so
many things. I haven't been sleeping.
Six AM Barcelona, waiting for the train. It's a
cold world. I guess we're going to go to
Montpellier, maybe, and check it out. My social
observations and witticisms are crumbled to
the point of no regard. Watching my body fail
like this has been an experiment that I've long
waited for. Terror is where you find it, and believe
it's right around every corner.
me,
Sitting in yet another airport bar, waiting to go to
Paris to
catch
a n to go to Frankfurt to catch a
a train
to South Africa. Skated Marseille for
plane to go to
three days. It's cold, and wet a lot of the time.
People took some slams. The thing that sucks most
about France is that nobody steps us at the park.
It's roller
pestilence and biker trogs. A kook's a
kook in
in any language, and these guys take the
cake. Heavy lumber, no. Moving a lot of shit, no.
Wheels, trucks, boards, nope. What's next? I have
snot coming out of my nose from my accident. I'm
seen. It's like I've
collecting boogers like I've r
e never seen.
finally found a running speed. It took me a long time.
It's kind of like when you're on drugs, and after a
on
while, it just starts taking control. And now I'm just
running on the afterburn. The thing I like most about
Europe is that there's no social stigma about drink-
ing. You can drink wine at seven in the morning. You
Seven
and no one's gonna say.
can drink beer at the park and m them." Booze is
"Hey, you kids, stay away from
booze. That's the way they're livin'.
Six AM, Frankfurt, Germany. Snow, cold, waiting to
catch a fucking airplane out of here to South Africa.
We have twelve hours to kill. So, we're sitting in
Frankfurt it's cold as fuck. Julien spots a skate
and
shop and it looks like they got a skatepark that just
opened up. I guess we're on our way. We e get t there, it
ain't open for two hours, we sit outside, break
some ice, feel how cold it is. Ditch our socks in
the bushes so they know we've
we've been there,
kinda like dogs pissing on fire hydrants. We
skate the park and I hit the wall. I was just
done. Julien looked at me, like, "What's up?"
And I said, "I'm done." He said, "Wow. That's
all?" That was all. All the shit, all the trips, it all
caught up w with me. I said, "Don't worry. You'll
get yours." Sure enough, two days.
s later, he
his. We were in South Africa by that time.
Johannesburg is a gnarly place. Scary, but the
people there are so cool. They treated us well,
picked
us up at the airport; the dudes at
got
Boogaloo's, Marnie and the guys, took care of
us. They took us to eight skateparks in serious-
ly 36 hours. The mother of all, and the reason
we were going. Germiston Bowl, long-ass
snakerun down into a big competition bowl.
Nice. It's in the middle of nowhere, and no one
knows who built it or how long it's been there.
It's just there. We skated there, skated some
90 THRASHER
South Africrete
Locs SA style
Park it
Rooftop party
A kook's a kook
rooftop. parks.
There are 400 car-
jackings a day in
six
Flyout rager
in any language
Johannesburg. People just wait on the side of the road, and if they like
your car, they shoot you and take you out. That's it. There's so much
paranoia among the people that everybody's afraid to go into downtown
Johannesburg at night. I wouldn't go there either, I guess. There are like
murders a night in the downtown area. We skated some other little
bowl called Troyville Bowl in the middle of this crazy place.
Skateboarding has just started
being
there within the last ten years, so
the kids are gung ho for it but they're not really good. So even as flat as
we were, we made a pretty good impression. We skated some mega vert
walls, , and then it was time to cut out. They took us to a sick meal where
could get :
you
t zebra a and ostrich, and all kinds of crazy shit, straight from
the game reserve. So we ate-thanks guys, Boogaloo's rocks-and then
we had the fourteen-hour flight to Brazil.
Brazil was kind of rough. We e got there, no visa, so the lady detained
us and said we couldn't make it into the country. We had things to do
and people waiting for us. My travel agent, whoever that is, well, that's
the end of that. Electronic visa? Sit down. So fourteen hours in the air-
port to catch that one flight home that leaves to New York once a
The barber of Seville to fakie
day. Then fourteen hours more to
New York, and then a two-hour lay-
over at six in the morning to a six-
hour flight back to SF. I guess I did it, RTW, but it was kind of a letdown
at the end. Anyway, I guess the bottom line about this whole thing is that
when I started off I said where I've been I hope you never go. But where
I'm going, no one's ever been there before. Think about it. -Jake Phelps
Exact Time in Each City
LA: 02.05 Friday, 8:23 pm-10:30 pm
•2 hrs. 07 min..
Auckland: 02.07 Sunday 8:00 am - 02.10 Wednesday 2:15 pm
.78 hrs. 15
hrs. 15 min..
Bangkok: 02.10 Wednesday 10:10 pm - 02.11 Thursday 3:05 pm
16 hrs. 55 min..
16 bre 55 min
Manila: 02.11 Thursday 7:10 pm - 02.12 Friday 11:25 pm
•28 hrs. 15 min..
Frankfurt: 02.13 Saturday 6:05 am-9:20 am
+3 hrs 15 min.
•3 hrs. 15 min..
Madrid: 02.13
2.13 Saturday 11:50 am - 02.14 Sunday 10:00 pm
34 hrs. 10 min.
*34
Barcelona: 02.15 Monday 7:00 am - 8:45 am
•1 hr. 45 min..
Montpellier: 02.15 Monday 1:19 pm - 1:50 pm
•31 min.
•31 min.
Marseille: 02.15 Monday 3:43 pm - 02.17 Wednesday 4:25 pm
⚫48 hrs. 42 min..
Paris: 02.17 Wednesday 5:50 pm - 10:29 pm
•4 hrs. 39 min..
*4 hrs. 39
Frankfurt: 02.18 Thursday 7:01 am - 9:55 pm
•14 hrs. 54 min..
141
Johannesburg: 02.19 Friday 9:15 am - 02.21 Sunday 1:45 am
•40 hr. 30 min..
Rio de Janeiro: 02.21 Sunday 8:15 am - 02.22 Monday 8:25 pm
35 hrs. 10 min..
New York City: 02.23 Tuesday 6:20 am - 8:15 am
1 hr. 55 min..
Total Ground Time: 311 hours 03 minutes
Total Trip Time: 423 hours 41 minutes
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