Trip Diary Extracts - July

02 July, Haina

Wondering whether I shouldn't change my whole travel plans so as to be able to take part in the Frauenbaustelle [women's construction site] in Haina and Karlshof. The Haina weeks are from 02.08 - 14.08. I think the Karlshof one is in late August. Which would mean shortening France and überhaupt only going to Paris and Bretagne and not to Grange Neuve and/or Madrid.
[...]
I need more than four months of free travelling. Right now could imagine just going on like now for a while - although I would eventually have to think about how I secure my health insurance.
[...]
Spent most of Sunday afternoon clearning the after party rests, cleaning glasses, packing, putting stuff back where they'd been taken before the party. At 6pm I felt I'd done enough. Which got me thinking about time, chores, day structure. It is so easy to wake up, get up, have food and see whether something pops up during the day where I can help out. Go for walks. Read. Go to bed. And start again. I'm not really worried about it yet because I need a break, I need to feel how I can live with a totally different rhythm and feel for time outside of Berlin.
But in the long term, I would need to find a way to structure my day, have projects, have the feeling I'm going forward, not stagnating. And deserve my food...


04 July, Haina

All sorts of possible decisions slowly being made within me regarding trip and destinations.
[...] Confusion. I'd originally decided that tomorrow, Thursday, was the last day for me to leave and set off for Karlshof. But I've spent all day unsure as to whether I should follow the plan. I don't really feel like hitchhiking tomorrow, nor do I feel like leaving.


10/11 July, Berlin

How strange to be walking in the city today - to feel hard stone under my feet, walk though vast areas without fields or forests in the distance, feel how walking at my own rhythm disturbs other walkers - because I suddenly think and stop in the middl eof the path, not keeping in mind that I'm NOT alone in a vast open space. How strange also to realise the impact of trafic lights on one's rhythm - how my pauses in the walking are determined mechanically by the lights.
[...]
Arrived yesterday evening at Daniela's after a meeting of the Non-Commercial Agriculture network at Armin's in Niederfinow. I spent the weekend on Karlshof - drove up early on Saturday with Gudrun and Nadja. Sad I was to leave Haina... My last night there was spent chatting with Uwe, who eventually gave me a book - I'd said I had no novel with me - and seemed to genuinely want to see me again. I like Uwe. I missed him somehow after we left. I definitely left some starting roots in Haina.


13 July 07, Vigneux S/ Seine

I eventually managed to get to Vigneux yesterday evening after an exciting trip. The emotional highlights were the evening at Tobi and Marlene's in Cologne, and, on the next day, the Turkish trucker who was against letting me hitchhike alone.

The evening in Cologne was insanely comfortable. I arrived and felt at home. I had hesitated on the road and wondered whether it was a good idea to go to Tobi's, as, even though he's really fun and intelligen, I often ended up quiet and non-conversational. The first trucker who had picked me in Berlin - an Asterix look alike from Normandy - was heading for Paris and I considered just staying with him instead. But the thought of one last social evening in Germany was pleasing, and so I got off before Cologne and was taken to the corner of Tobi's street by a friendly young woman.

Marlene looked like Adam - squary glasses, small eyes, uneven hair cut, broad jaws. There was something satisfyingly punkish about her. Her name and her voice on the phone hadn't made me expect that. She was rushing to a meeting in a garden and Tobi and I said we would cook for her return two hours later.
So we peeled and sliced and cut and exchanged stories - stories about Haina people, other communities, hitchhiking and traveling. Marlene came back before I even noticed it was evening, and food was served. It was nice food, there was joking and more swapping of stories. Marlene has a spot in a schreber-garten like allotment, and they were interested to hear about Schreber father and son. It's amazing how nobody knows where the name for schrebergarten comes from, considering how the term is broadly used.
Eventually it was midnight, and we all went to bed. I felt like I'd known them for years, like I'd often come to their flat. It was strange, but sweetley comfortable. Tobi is an instantly lovable character. I had breakfast with him and chatted for another hour until I eventually got myself together and decided to set off. Marlene popped out of bed, all sleepy headed, to say bye, and Tobi took me to the bus stop. I will definitely see them again.

I got a lift to Aix la chapelle within 15 minutes and thought I would be near Paris in the afternoon. And it probably would have been the case if I hadn't foolishly taken a lift from a Turkish trucker who spoke no French, English nor German. He said he was heading for France, and as I showed him my route on the map, he nodded. It turned out we'd misunderstood one another fantastically. He was heading for Calais via Brussells, not via Lille. He stopped around 12.30 off the motorway in an industrial yone where a doyen other Turkish truckers had parked and were having their lunch break. [...] Another Trucker, younger guy, spoke French and German. I eventually realised I could use his services for translation. Pointing at the map in the coffee room, I made sure Ahmet understood that he had to let me get off at a services area before Gand. The young trucker translated, ensued a dialogue in Turkish I couldn't follow, and eventually he told me they were calling a taxi that would take me to Liege, from where I would take a train to Paris. They would pay for the ticket.
I stopped smiling and said in my most authoritative voice that IIII was the one deciding and I would not take a taxi to liege!
Ahmet was sad when he eventually left me before Brussels. He put a drink, an apple and a banana in a plastic bag and made sure I took it.
The situation didn't look rosy: I was on the wrong road, and had to handle a motorway crossing to get back in the right direction. I wasted several hours in Belgium and got to France (Lille) around 5 or 6pm. But bit by bit, I managed to get to St Denis and took the RER to Vigneux, calling father 20 mins before my arrival.
Arriving in Vigneux... The flat is cramped and greasy and dirty, and I realised I'd forgotten to say I'm practically a vegetarian now. I didn't feel like sleeping on the sofa and decided to take my Iso-matte and sleeping bag on the terrace. I don't know how long I'm staying.


15 July

Realised yesterday late afternoon that I'd missed the clown brigade's 14 July parade. I'd forgotten about it! I was upset, especially as it would have been a nice opportunity to get access to a different scene in France. But numbed as I was by the uneventfulness of passive banlieue life, I forgot all about political actions happening.
[...]
Vegetarianism. I realised as I arrived here that I hadn't really thought about the fact that I don't eat meat (unless I'm on the farm producing it). I would nearly have accepted eating meat here, out of habit, but I got myself together and didn't - which started some snippets of interesting discussion on meat as a luxury, the link to global food production and the destruction of the rainforest. But then, I don't always feel like having this discussion - for instance not with gabby today at lunchtime. Fortunately (in a way), I'm cooking for her and could decide to make the only French meal I know that is vegetarian: ratatouille.
[...]
Everything here is so different to my "normal" environment. I have to make special efforts to eat according to my principles, I'm surrounded by consumerism, abuse of packaging, wasteful use of resources - all done without a thought, taken for granted. And all set up in the frame of small family structures, bubbles where people think they feel safe and protected from whatever lies outside. [...] It's the first time I notice I'm disturbed by the small family structures and the impact they may have on people's mentality.


16 July

Been looking at all sorts of pages to find alternative projects in France. So many seem to have been evicted or somehow died. The only one that leaves constant traces is les tanneries in Dijon, which I'm more and more intrigued by.
I found that workshops on non-violent direct action were taking place, also a theater festival of the compagnie jolie mome near Clermont ferrand. So I've spent several hours perusing my maps and websites to find interesting places and figure out what I wanted to do. [...] I need to find out whether Xa would be interested in coming with me to the workshop + festival. It would mean shortening my time in Britanny.
-
Just talked to Xa who wasn't all up on the idea of going to Clermont because he'd looked forward to Corseul, which i can understand. That's alright. I should ask Veikko for the details of the project of a friend of his he mentioned in the ardeches somewhere. That would also be a station in central france that could conveniently take me away from the paris stop on my way back east. Or even provide a stop on my way south.
So: decided to move to Paris tomorrow and leave on Wednesday.


18 July, Rennes

Surrendered. Resisting in Paris and Banlieue is too difficult. Probably because I don't have the network to support me. I stood at Portes d'Orleans this morning in vain, the spot was bad, my hopes fairly low. And eventually my gut feeling said "take the train!" and I went back to the metro, up to Montparnasse, and bough a horrendously expensive train ticket to Dinan. Why not to Rennes, and hitch from there? I don't know. I just gave up for the day. I think it shows I'm not ready for the alternative tour of france and should go back to germany, where I feel I can fall back on my feet more certainly. but that's exactly what I'm not happy about - not trusting to take up the challenge.