The travel essay I read last night...

Below is the piece I read last night at our second public reading of the semester. The turn out was great, Colby MC'ed this time, and I got to read a piece that Colby and I co-writ. Read it below if you have 10 minutes or so. Adios!

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ONE HOUR IN ROOM 604... by Noel Bryant and Colby Kennedy

Room 604 at Hotel Barcelona in Lisbon, Portugal was upscale, modern, and very comfortable. The beds were soft and cool. The quiet room was a good contrast to the hustle and bustle of the downtown of the beautiful city of Lisbon.
It was our second night in Lisbon. We were studying abroad in Seville, Spain, and Lisbon was the destination city for one of our school’s organized trips. That day had been spent exploring the city, sight-seeing, and taking pictures, typical touristy adventures. But as college students typically do, we decided that all the things we did that day weren’t enough, and we had to experience the nightlife. But first we needed to recuperate. Fair enough.

COLBY KENNEDY – 10:00pm
“I want to take a legitimate nap before tonight. I know what we need,” I said as I got up to play some “chill” music on my computer laptop while we indeed chilled.
I had a lot of movie music on this particular playlist. I turned off the lights and only the hallway light illuminated our room. Music from Lord of the Rings graced our ears. Our heads laid back and our minds began to wander.
“Wait I know this, what is it?” Noel said.
“Into the West from Lord of the Rings,” I answered. “I love resting to music like this. It’s so relaxing.”
Noel nodded his head in approval.
While I was up, Ryan Marcum stole my spot on the bed. Ryan was built like me, tall and skinny, but to a greater degree. He had dark brown, long, shaggy hair, soft eyes, and was a really genuine guy.
My roommate, Noel Bryant, lay down on his bed facing the ceiling. Noel was a short guy, probably about 5’8, medium build, with scruf covering his face and small, thin glasses. I was glad I was rooming with Noel. In a lot of ways, I thought of him as a much better version of myself—he was smart, funny, musically talented, and a good guy. Noel was also very decisive about the things he believed in and I looked up to him for that reason.

NOEL BRYANT – 10:00pm
I was excited to go out in Lisbon, Portugal. I very much enjoyed going out, drinking a little, and dancing with friends. I lay there, listening to the sounds of Frodo Baggins and Gandalf the Great coming from my friend Colby’s computer.
Colby is one of those guys that I wish I had become close with before my trip to study abroad in Spain, because he is such a good guy. I almost wish that we had been friends years and years ago. He was tall, lanky, had a patchy beard that made him look as though he still hadn’t finished puberty, and basically one of the funniest people I have ever met. I knew that one day we could become really great pals. I don’t think either of us thought that one day would be today.
“Oh come on man! This looks really gay!” Colby said to Ryan, another guy that I wish I had become friends with sooner.
“No big deal man, there’s room for everybody,” Ryan said as he scooted over on their narrow, single bed.
This was typical Colby and Ryan behavior. Joking about sexual preference with your guy friends is common in a close brotherhood. I relaxed on my bed, alone, and felt happy knowing that we, as friends, were becoming close enough to joke about sexuality.

COLBY KENNEDY – 10:10pm
Ryan and I snuggled on a bed, and I thought about something Noel, Ryan and I all discussed earlier in the semester when we first became acquaintances. We couldn’t wait to see what bonds would be formed between our travel mates and us. This was a whole new culture on the other side of the world. The three of us all discussed that we were excited to grow close to all these people through eating exotic foods, discovering hidden treasures in a new land, stumbling through local dialects, living the European night life, and learning as much as we could about our new environment.
Our friend Humberto rushed in through the open door.
“Hey guys are ya’ll goin’ out to-,” Humberto stopped mid sentence as he realized Ryan and I were sharing a bed.
“Wow,” Humberto said. “Guess I’m just gonna go ahead and go.”
We all broke into laughter. Humberto, my short, stocky Mexican friend, had a good sense of humor and great sarcasm.
“Scoot over dude, I’m comin in,” Humberto said to Noel as he immediately joined our little slumber party.
“You’re takin up too much room, fool!” Humberto said.
“Me?!” Noel replied. “I’m barely hanging on to the bed over here!”
“I know. I’m just playin!” Humberto cheerfully laughed.
All of us were friends, but none of us were friends. That is to say, we all knew each other, but none of us knew each other that well. I had met Humberto briefly my freshmen year of college at a school function, I knew Ryan through some Christian organizations back home, and I had met Noel for the first time trying out for a comedy troupe also in my freshmen year of college. Noel and the others hadn’t had even met each other before our study abroad experience.
I wanted to sleep but that wasn’t going to happen. Our conversation took off. Cue the music from Braveheart.

NOEL BRYANT – 10:15pm
So now there were four of us sharing 2 beds. Colby and Ryan in one, and our friend Humberto and I in the other. Humberto was always in a happy mood, had a slightly annoying laugh (but not enough to make you want to slap him), and at 5’6’’ he was even more of a midget than I was. Even though we just met on this trip, like I did with the others, we felt like we had so much in common. But how much did we all have in common?
“Okay, okay, who is your all-time superhero lineup?” I asked seriously. I am a little bit… okay, a lot bit of a nerd, and I was hoping my new bedmates were as well.
“Well that’s hard to say. I mean your most powerful or just your favorite. You gotta be specific here,” Colby answered.
“Just like the ones you want most on your team to save the world” I clarified.
“Batman is my favorite,” Humberto said. “The Flash is so freakin’ fast man, he would be good too.” Nice. We were all a little nerdy.
“I’ve got a good one,” Ryan said. “Yoda. Just the whole Jedi council will do.”
“Whoa whoa whoa, are we including Jedi and other characters from different legendariums?” Colby said.
“Yeah, that’s cool. All fictional characters are game,” I explained.
“Well that makes it a lot harder. I mean you got all kinds of people and I’m not really sure how they stack up against each other,” Colby said. “If you’re going to put all those people in there, I gotta go Goku from Dragon Ball Z.”
“Yes!” I exclaimed. “Goku would whoop up on a lot of these guys.”
“I’ll take Goku, Professor X from the X-MEN, the Hulk, and Jean Grey as part of my team,” Colby said.
“What about Harry Potter?” I asked. The room went silent as we all were wondering whether that was a joke. I didn’t even know whether I was joking or not. I was just trying to get a pause in the conversation, to take a breath. We were going all over the map at 100 miles and hour.
“Yoda would beat the crap out of Professor X,” Ryan continued, foregoing my comment.
“Yeah right!” Colby shot back.
“Okay you got Yoda’s amazing Force powers against Professor X’s mind powers. Who is gonna win?” Ryan said.
“Professor X is one of the most powerful mutants in the world he would destroy Yoda,” Colby said.
“But the Force is so strong with him,” I chimed in. We all broke out into laughter. This conversation started with superheroes, went to Elves and Wizards, X-Men, Harry Potter, and continued with Yoda. I loved every minute of it. I am a very quirky individual who is a little ADD. It seemed that these guys were as well. Usually when I am all over the place with my nerdiness, people can’t keep up. These guys were actually making it hard for me to keep up. Excellent. Nerds united.
“Yoda’s forte is that he is so very wise, not necessarily powerful though. If we are talking about just a fight, then Professor X would win,” Colby said.
We were treating this question as if it really mattered. Because to friends, everything matters.

COLBY KENNEDY – 10:40pm
I could feel the little kid well up inside me. We talked as if all these events would come to fruition and the characters were right next door. Noel, Ryan, and I were all 21 and Humberto was 22, but for those precious moments we were anywhere between 9 and 13. Graduation was right around the corner and so was our worst nightmare—the real world. Noel and I were talking about X-MEN, Dragon Ball Z, and Star Wars. What was I going to do in real life business meetings? Tell my boss Wolverine could totally beat up Spiderman?
Somehow through our childish conversations, I knew that we all were growing closer. I didn’t know what it was about sharing this small part of our lives, but for some reason I felt like we had known each other since grade school. It felt exactly like having friends over to spend the night and talking into the late hours about everything and yet nothing, and at the end they were more like brothers. Gladiator is pumping through the speakers.
“Magneto is a terrible villain,” Ryan said.
“Are you kidding me?,” I said in disbelief. “He is an awesome super villain. He was in Auschwitz. He was in the Holocaust. That gives his character so much depth and meaning.”
The conversation, though still moving at an incomparable speed, then took a more serious turn.
“Dude isn’t history crazy?” Humberto said. “I mean like the stuff that happened and how it all fits together is crazy. Like things in the past that everyone thought were normal but today we think are terrible. Like slavery.”
We were creeping closer to Noel’s alley. He was a Political Science major who really enjoyed discussing deep theological and philosophical questions. He began his lesson…
“Slavery is such a crazy subject, because even though we find it horribly offensive, people in the olden days actually believed with all their heart that some races simply weren’t as human as others. Looking back at things in the past and judging them now is crazy,” Noel lectured.
“I know,” I said. “Like the fact that people watched other people kill each other in the Coliseum for entertainment is wild. And back then it just wasn’t a big deal. Human life was much less valued. It makes me wonder what people will look back on 1,000 years from now and say ‘I can’t believe they did this in 2009.’”

NOEL BRYANT – 10:50pm
Colby, never late to bring up a new topic of discussion, decided to ask on more question. I think it was because even though we were all excited to go out that night, we all knew that what was going on right here was just a cool, just as fun, and just as important. Relationships are the things that you remember on your death bed.
“Okay, okay. From anyone in the entire history of time, who would you want to eat dinner with?” Colby questioned. It was a good one.
I responded first.
“Excluding Jesus, right?”
“Of course,” said Colby.
“No duh,” Humberto followed.
“Yeah,” Ryan concluded.
“Okay, okay. I wish I could go back in time and meet Leonardo Da Vinci,” I continued. “That guy was good at everything and he was incredibly smart. Everything he did was like a masterpiece. He is the Renaissance Man, the first Jack of all Trades”.
I bubbled with the idea of meeting a man who could do it all. After all, I have always wanted to be successful at everything. That is part of the reason I took this chance to study Spanish abroad in Spain.
“Leonardo Da Vinci even drew the first prototype of a helicopter and machinegun,” Colby spoke up. “If it was me I’d have to meet Hitler. That guy was so freakin crazy. I‘d have to ask him what was going on in his head and why he did the things he did.”
At first I thought that his response was a little strange. Not many people who would put Jesus first would immediately seat Hitler next on their fantasy dinner table.
“Just think about the possible tension at that dinner table. Those are two crazy different personalities,” I added.
“I know. It would be awesome,” Colby concluded. He did love to push the envelope. One time he tried to sell garbage to a gypsy woman on the street just to see how they felt when strangers confronted them to buy something at the touristy spots of Sevilla.
Ryan spoke next.
“I think I would have to meet Harriet Tubman. The underground railroad was pretty sweet.”
Well… that’s kind of lame, I thought. I chuckled on the inside a little bit…

COLBY KENNEDY – 30 seconds earlier
I loved these kinds of discussions. I always asked questions like this to start conversation and it usually worked. People’s choices revealed so much about who they are.
“I think I would have to meet Harriet Tubman. The underground railroad was pretty sweet,” Ryan said.
“Dude, that is a good choice, man,” I said. Noel chuckled a little bit.
Humberto was the only one left to go.
“I’d go back in time and meet Santa Anna and punch him in the face,” our Mexican friend said. “I hate that fool,” he said.
“Why?” I said.
“Well I’m not sure what ya’ll learned in school, but we learned that he gave most of Texas away,” Humberto answered.
“Yeah, we just learned that he was captured and we basically forced him to sign a treaty giving over Texas,” I explained.
“Yeah, they told him he could either die or give up Texas and he just gave it to them,” Humberto said. “He was such a coward. Don’t get me wrong I love Texas and all. I just think he sold out his troops and countrymen.”
“Give me a break Humberto. Mexico is a joke,” I jested.
“I’ll freakin kill you man!” Humberto said as he laughed and jumped onto our bed to assault Ryan and I. Rocky blasted through the laptop speakers.

COLBY AND NOEL – 11:00pm
Our conversation about superheroes, judged events of the past, and historical figures concluded and it was time to actually go out for the night. We all looked excited, but sad at the same time. Did we have to get up and go out?


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Hope you enjoyed it! Until next time...

Peace, love and God bless,
Noel