A night in a cave and other stories

I'm back in the city where people have started shooting out their new year's celebration weapons. This week, I

- had christmas cabbage lasagne with my friend Anna and her girlfriend, then walked around the city, at first to go to a party which turned out not to be taking place, then just for the sake of walking and talking, largely about open relationships,

- hitched to Leipzig, all wrapped up in 7 layers of clothing, to go to Johannes' sister's farm where I ate traditional German xmas lunch (a turkey from the neighbour's, dumplings and red cabbage), spent some time outside, played with the kids, had a camp fire with Johannes and our Leipzig clown friend Max - who said he was soon to go off for a cave where he would spend a few days, as he does every end of year with some 20 other freaks. We decided to go along.

- the next day, we missed the train to Dresden, although Johannes, his and my stuff where already in the train. Me, I was waiting for Max on the platform, and the door just closed on me and wouldn't open again. I waved off Johannes who didn't really understand why it seemed the train was moving without me inside. Fortunately, he could get off at the next station only 10 minutes away and come back. We tried again with the next train and were successful.

- arrived in still bombed out and empty dresden into our clown friend Nico's place which he shares with 6 other adults and two kids. We immediately got thrown cold wet washed clothes at by nico and the older kid, even before we stepped into the flat. The rest of the evening continued along the same lines, with a lot of running around, screaming, jumping, playing rhythm games and being silly, while Johannes and Max took charge of the cooking. Another clown, Tobi, also met at the clowns' camp last September, arrived, there was more rejoicing, and we all went to a party, where we saw yet another clown friend, Anne. Clowns played on the dance floor and looked decidedly uncool while other people tried to dance seriously.

- The next day, we then took another train that took us right on the border to the Czech republic, the Saxonian Switzerland as the region is called, a place of mountains and forests and caves. We walked for two hours up, at first along moderate paths, then up steep metal steps, then up more steep steps, carrying our rucksack, until we reached the top - and there was snow! And my shoes were slippy. And it turned out I could absolutely not walk on the narrow winding slippery paths and reach the cave. So I reached it sliding on my behind for the most part, or being caught in extremis by Johannes behind me. We reached the cave in the dark, it was cold, the fire wouldn't start and I started to wonder why we thought it would be cool to go off to a cave in the middle of winter. Hugging in our sleeping bags looking for warmth, J and I saw how Max, much later, eventually managed to get a fire going. And yet later, two men with forehead lamps arrived - friends of Max. They immediately started gathering more wood, cutting it, and the cave looked like a factory or a mine, with these three men with forehead lamps in the dark, all busily active, sawing wood, piling it up, keeping the fire high. We fell asleep and woke up again as the three were sat around the fire drinking hot mulled wine and one of the newcomers told bland stories of drunkeness and alcohol excess. This went on for hours. Eventually there was quiet. Until one of the guys, with panic in his voice, called his friend. "Thomas! Thomas! No Thomas, don't be a fool! You'll freeze to death! Talk to me Thomas!"
It turned out Thomas' stomach had not been too happy about the alcohol intake. He fell into a half coma, and Mario's worried slapping and calling made him grunt. Somehow, Mario and Max managed to slip the severely unwell Thomas into a sleeping bag - from where he started vomiting. And continued the whole night long.

- The next morning, surprisingly, Thomas hadn't died. He was in a bad state but managed to eventually get up. Mario threw all his vomit-covered stuff into a waste bag, and we all trailed down the mountains. Thomas stumbled down the path like a walking dead but was faster than me and my slippery shoes. Mario drove us back to Dresden, where he dropped Thomas and the vomitty stuff at Thomas' girlfriend, and where Jo and I caught a train to Berlin. Mario and Max went back to the mountains.

This wasn't exactly what I hoped when I left the city, looking for quiet and time and meditation... But at least I had fresh air, exercise, and now indescribable leg cramps. A random end to the year.