After I was done with old France, I went over to Germany because it's next door, you know-and I took this boat trip up the Rhine. I don't know what the hell " Rhine " means in German, but it looks like it oughta mean "sewer." The whole river smells like somebody laid a big old fart, too. It really does. I won't ever complain about the Hudson when I get home, and you can walk across the Hudson, practically.

When I get home. If I get home. The boat stopped at this place called Isenstein. It's a real dump, I tell you, but back of it there's a kind of a crag thing with a castle on top. I wasn't gonna get off the boat-I'd paid the fare all the way up to Düsseldorf, wherever that is-but the river just smelled so bad I couldn't stand it any more, so I left. Maybe they'd let me back on the next one. And if they didn't, who cares? I had piles of money and traveler's checks and stuff.

Well, let me tell you, the streets in old Isenstein didn't smell so good, either. That was partly because it was still right next to the Rhine, and it was partly because the people there had the most disgusting personal habits in the world. I saw this one guy standing in the street taking a leak against the side of a crumby old dirty brick building, and it wasn't even like he was drunk or anything. He was just doing it. And then he went on his way happy as you please. I wouldn't've believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, and that's the truth.

They had a church there, so I went inside and looked around. I always tried to look at those cultural things, because who knows when I was ever coming back again? Coming back to Europe, I mean-I wouldn't've come back to Isenstein if you paid me, you can bet your bottom dollar on that. But the church was pretty dirty and crumby, too. By the time I got done looking at it, I was feeling pretty goddam depressed. I really was. So I got the hell out of there.