Once upon a time our dear Fox has escaped the deep forests of Baltia and soon after we've set out on a bold quest throughout Europe to find her.
We started our journey from surprisingly exciting Warsaw, where we spent lovely three days with its dwellers and faraway visitors from the edge of the lands alike. Local Orange umbrella guide Gosia showed us around, shared the story of a bell, a lady who fed pigeons during war, the story of Sigismund and gave local brew for breakfast. Hosts prepared delicious vegetarian cake in the evening and wished us all the best on our path and next morning it all began.
Thumbed down cars were very enthusiastic about picking us up and hasty enough to get us to where we want to. The motorways of Poland look like an insect paths between anthills in a vast meadow - there are some forests faraway across the fields on both sides of the asphalted path, the snails are slowly towing goods from one anthill to another and cars like ants quickly pass them in an endless cycle.
Our seemingly flawless trip got its first challenge when the ant dropped us off a bit farther away than expected. We were around 30 kilometres behind Berlin borders - Ideally, this would have been quite a decent spot to go westwards to Gallia, but the sun is setting and we have to find shelter. My emotionally more passionate companion starts to spread panic - it was a great showdown between bold action and blind hope, both helplessly foolish for particular occasion. Battle of patience and nerves which continued for an hour ended abruptly with heavy losses on both sides. I had to surrender my foolish hope - there is still more of it in extreme action, than in idleness I had chosen.
In dusk we hiked for a couple of hours along dangerous and exhausting Autobahn, enraging ant and snail drivers, whom we did not disrupt at all, until Brandenburgian chivalry picked us up to the edges of Berlin in cosy chariot of theirs. "Never do that again" they warned us, giving away our passports. We were "checked-in" their databases for ages to come, in case we commit this treason ever again. Twenty minutes later we arrive at the Alexanderplatz, which looks like abandoned nothing significant, smells terrible and its skynet is purely commercial. Fortunately, I had my wikionastick.html file with directions to «The Heart of Gold» spaceship, which is disguised as an average building of Berlin. The atmosphere of the place is much better than I have expected from "mass-hostel" in the middle of Berlin - cosy couches, free skynet, easy checking in, a bar, alternative music and even acceptable price - 9 € - great place in general, where I would love to come back at-some-point-of-my-mortal-time. After free showers we inspected the damage inflicted upon us - a terrible blister on a foot, a clumsy cut, heavy dehydration - it will burden us all following days even after taking care of it, but a ruined promising friendship is only scar that will never fully heal. I guess we both fell asleep very swiftly, both with mixed feelings.
Morning was full of business - we have to find a host for next night in Berlin, meet a friend from Transylvania, find anybody to stay with in Amsterdam and maybe to have a breakfast. Alexanderplatz didn't look much better during the day. Berlin streets are littered in not-very-exciting cold-war-era buildings and streets themselves are heavily coated in rusty beer caps, all sorts of plastic wraps and old papers. Even ignoring the pavement didn't work - walls are riddled with ridiculously thick layers of outdated posters, decaying stickers and mostly tasteless tags. My friend showed us some hidden gems of Berlin and suggested the route to the gates of Brandenburg. The Brandenburg area and its strasse is by far the nicest places I would not be shy to show a tourist. We were too exhausted to do anything more than arriving to our host for a night, which we did.
Our host, Sebastian, turned out to be a great guy. Besides his loft, he also shared travel stories, asked us out for a small tour around Kreuzberg and invited for a jazz concert in re-purposed train station. We even had the time to visit most of the whopping 3km of Berlin wall the next day, just before Linda single-handedly eliminated both of us in a table football tournament. "She just has lucky side," we made an excuse before losing many times more after switching sides with her. Later the fluffy-pink walled bar visit ensued, where everything was "Just tasteless enough to become interesting," as described by Linda. Next morning we took above-ground metro to the petrol station for another car thumbing lottery to Brussels.
We are first to arrive to the station, with a couple of girls and many weirdos following soon. Despite our timing, we are one of the last to get the car in our needed direction. Us, a day and 700 kilometres of road to Brussels. Fortunately this time the cars came quick and easy, on average less than 5 minutes per car, and we had around six or seven of them. The last guy didn't look very promising to me - Mitsubishi SUV with German numbers, black, big dude with not very friendly expression. I skipped him, but he slowly rolled by, watching us and nodding with his head once. "He will not kill me if I will ask" I thought. Holding a map with my finger on "Bruxelles" I came up to him - "Ui, I am going there, but I will have to make a loop around first. If you do not mind being one hour later - be my guests". It is becoming dark, I glanc at my companion, she had that "I do not want to stand here" look on her face. Our ant driver was a very impressive folk. Originally from Cameroon, a hard worker, presented himself as shy guy who does not take hitch-hikers often, but "he felt like known us for ages," so he was quite the opposite - talkative, shared his stories from Cameroon, his experiences living in Bruxelless and how he is living very well by working hard for it. The loop he made was to buy a computer from some teen. "I do not want them to see my car, they will raise the price! How could I explain that I bought this car for my uncle with his money?" he worried, driving just in front of the house. He introduced me as "IT specialist Niko from Letonia". Confused, but with stone cold face in a living room of the French family I inspected the computer - wireless and sound works, no scratches, the buttons do not stick to the metal body, which is a good sign, the operating system is original - yep, it is a good deal, even if the reason to sell it - because of "slow internet" - seemed to be very fishy. Already in the car our new friend excitingly excused himself for calling me Niko, he did that without any second thoughts because of the same reasons why he picked us. I was too tired to grok all what he told me - he was too tired to stop talking, otherwise he would fall asleep. He was so kind to drop us off just in front of my friends doorstep. The 700 km trip was too exhausting, so half an hour later we were already sleeping.
My dear friend Jānis, who hosted us in Brussels is amazing. Not only he is rough and caring good friend, but he is also an excellent guide. We had only a day to visit Bruxelles before leaving to Paris next morning and he did his part extraordinary well! In a day not only we have seen must-see touristy things in the centre of Brussels, but also found some geocaches, ate waffles, Belgian fries, consumed good ales and even have been to the park. Unfortunately I made him upset a couple of times when sent him "too ascetic" couch request in "wrong language," and for smashing a glass I just washed. Perhaps these incidents, loss of common interests and friends and further integration in life with romantic couples will continue to stimulate our separation. I still hold very dear all the precious memories we share together from school, Norway, caching and tent. Next day he helped us out to the best terrible hitch-hiking spot to Paris, where we got first car to musical petrol station and next one to Lille - the last place we wanted to be. After two miserable hitching hours we decided to march through Lille to the bus, which peculiarly costs more than from Brussels.
Eight o'clock in the morning and already we are walking through the streets of Paris. I do not know what have I expected from the city. It seemed quite dull - every next street looks like previous one, which looked like one before that and just as same as the next one, with the same coffee shops, bistros and restaurants, which you differ one from another only by reading their names. Somewhere in-between the streets you can find a cemetery, Notre dame, triumph arch, a shopping street, L'ouvre and a tower. No wonders the tower is mostly only symbol of the city. What I liked was chairs. The city is littered with green school chairs - you can carry one or another in the park, place it wherever you please and enjoy your time, be it with friends or individually. While my companion visited museums, I roamed around the city, used chairs, participated in a protest against newly elected president and looked at industrial buildings. My companion was very excited about L'ouvre museum complex and was hardly even impressed by the sight of a tower. We've spent quite a while at the tower playing word guessing games, before our host arrived from work. It was our final rest before next day's hike to the 19 hour bus to Madrid.
Upon our arrival to Alcala we were too tired of blisters, heavy bags and ruined communication. We successfully found The Fox, but were not able to excite her with our presence. She took great care of us in her lair, but we had became too insensitive for new things, too used to hospitality, too emotionally and physically tired to have any initiative. Imminent drama ensued. During our almost a week stay in Alcala we went to Madrid once to witness the aftermath of worker strike, hiked up a mountain, very luxurious thing for people from the forests of Baltia, and had one day for ourselves to spend with friends. Our time away from Madrid came to travel-normal, we spent it watching Lord of The Rings at the MAD airport, got a bar of chocolate at STN airport for guarding bags, while waiting 9 hours for a plane. We did not even had enough will to visit London.
I feel that it is very important to document journeys, thoughts and share even the hardest experiences and difficulties. Travel is never effortless and easy, especially the adventures that are not manufactured and sold to wealthy masses. Any real adventure will always pose physical and mental challenges. By travelling together even the most similar of people find out the tiniest differences, annoyances which imminently lead to destructive arguments. Even alone the most monotonous minds will argue with oneself, blame themselves. In times of stress people behaviour is inadequate, the panic ensues and everything falls down, no matter how hard you are or how hard you try. Only through mutual understanding we can come out gracefully in peace. I am glad that I had this experience.
What I got for myself out of this experience is I became aware of flaws of my personality which I am eager to improve - twisted sense of humour, need to challenge opinions to refine my own, running ahead all the time. In the end, people who travel not only shatter stereotypes, became more self aware, learn the differences, they constantly improve and refine their character. I guess everybody has his own things to acquire from such an experiences.