h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

After the initial thrill wore off, I grew tired of watching French farms and villages go by. Maybe it was the time of year -- mid-November, when harvesting was finished, the fields were mostly brown stubble, and the Christmas landscape had not yet established itself. The blimp had WiFi, though, so I logged on to my email account.

The latest message was apparently inadvertent: Mary, a minion in the publisher's finance division, had put my address in the C.C. box of a confidential message to Scribbles:

"Scribs, you let Riccardo go way over budget last night with the wine and cheese. And why did he bring in that costly blimp today? The original plan -- tethering an ordinary hot air balloon to a truck, which Riccardo has done many times in the past -- would have gotten you to Paris just as fast. I know why you changed the plan: our online readership loves it when we use any kind of cutting-edge solar technology. We're going viral with this, in fact, but our readers also loved your uncle's comment about macaroni and cheese.
Bottom line: the solar blimp didn't hurt your story, but you need to cut corners. Economize on Parisian restaurants today. Pick a cheaper train line for tomorrow's expedition to Istanbul. Pell can still have a typical dish from every country he passes through. Just make it low-cost peasant food."

So anything I might say could be on the Internet where anyone could read it! This was my fifteen minutes of fame. I closed my laptop and scanned the horizon for early signs of Paris. Yes, there was the Eiffel Tower! Soon Notre Dame was visible.

I feared the worst that night. Would supper be at McDonald's? Would I be staying at the YMCA, or whatever France offered in its place?

We ended up at Cantine Richer for a tasty but not haute-cuisine meal of sausages and beans, with croques monsieur as an appetizer. And even though it was barely 6:00 p.m. when we finished eating, Scribbles pretended that we would need to retire early so we could catch our train, which would leave the next morning at 6:00 a.m.

"No trip to Montmartre?" I asked, sounding as disappointed as I could.

"Not on this trip," Scribbles said. "but by all means come back in the future and catch up on whatever you missed this time." He patted my back and shepherded me toward the nearest Metro stop. My hotel room turned out to be nice enough, though I suspected that it was chosen because it was just down the street from the train station -- no expensive taxis or limousines needed.

That night I had a nightmare about walking all the way to Istanbul. Morning came soon enough. On getting to the station, I was grateful to find that a real train was available, though the name of the line -- Accidental Express -- almost made me faint.

"I know what you're thinking," Scribbles said, steadying me. "It does *not* have an unusually large number of accidents. It just cuts out stations that nobody needs to go to. This trip won't stop in any of the Romanian stations. We think there are rumors of vampire sightings, and the managers don't want to take any chances."

Or, stopping too often would entail extra expense, I thought to myself. When the dining car began serving meals, I soon found that the line cut expenses on food, as well....

I am outraged. How DARE you skip the Romanian stations? Best part of Europe!

Arad is fascinating in November. And the strigoi just want your currency...

[Amy P]

"I am outraged. How DARE you skip the Romanian stations? Best part of Europe!" [Dmitri]



That isn't going to stop the train's managers from serving Pell yet *another* form of goulash -- the Romanian kind. In fact, I plan to have Pell bemoan the lack of opportunity to dash from the train at one of the Romanian stations, chase down a vampire, and make him eat the goulash. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I wasn't supposed to spill the beans about the surfeit of goulash, which is a real phenomenon that I had to endure on a tour of Prague, Vienna, and Budapest . That was in 2004, qnd since that time I have never made goulash again .

This reminds me of a 1974 student tour I took while living in Germany.

They kept feeding us Wienerschnitzel every day - in Rothenburg, Munich, Nuremberg...we were on the verge of striking...

Here's an old joke you can use when you get to Turkey:

Q: Why do they call this "Turkish Goulash"
A: The dog's name was Sultan

I rather liked Wienerschnitzel, but I'm grateful I only had to have it once.

Surely with vampires etc involved you should be spelling it Ghoul-ash.

Dmitri, I'd like to ask a favor of you. May I quote your comment about being outraged at the lack of Romanian stops? I plan to have a passenger -- a Mr. Kissov -- who utters those words. If you remember "Doctor Strngelove," you'll know that the Russian premier in that film was Dimitri Kissov, thus I'd be honoring both you and one of my favorite movies, but without the image of Slim Pickens riding a nuclear missile to Armageddon. For that, I would need a different storyline.

Fine with me.

I what would happen to a vampire ate Ghoulash.

I doubt the paprika would bother them. As long as they didn't put garlic in it.

Of course, in Romania, people eat garlic for breakfast...

The long term effects of garlic are incredible. In the end it even rid the Romanians of the Ceaucesus

"Fine with me. " [Dmitri]

Consider it done. Your comment about Romanians eating garlic for breakfast doesn't surprise me in the least. I went to someone who had heavy garlic breath when he got to school every day .

It was about 5.30 in the morning, and I was on a Romanian train. A lovely little old lady was sitting across from me. She had on a headscarf and peasant costume, and she had a few teeth left. She was beautiful.

The lady unpacked her breakfast makings: a big loaf of black bread, some butter, a knot of garlic, a bell pepper, and a butcher knife. The butcher knife made me think of my grandmother, an 80-pound menace who wielded a mean butcher knife (and tenderised steak with a claw hammer).

This Romanian lady sliced up the garlic and peppers, buttered the bread, and put slices of garlic and pepper on each. She offered me some, but I hadn't had enough sleep to manage that much garlic for breakfast. I declined with thanks.

Not that I believe in vampires [which In consider total rubbish], but if vampires were real, and if they made Romania their headquarters, garlic would be the most available means of keeping them away from you.

I don't know how those garlic-hating vampires could survive a country so saturated in garlic, myself.

I doubt that garlic can grow in deep forests or on steep mountainsides. It's not exactly a vine, is it?