Travel

Let’s inspire not impress each other

August 15. Back? Am I back?
Happily I arrive in Berlin, Michelsberg or something, a small village on the southern ring, from where a hypothetical train could lead me to the centre. I sleep on a park bench for several hours, step on the train that has become real dead-tired and go to my friends' place to surprise them. How warm ...
August 14. A piece of Autobahn.
Another Lituanian truck driver takes me almost all the way through Poland, and I have dinner in a roadside restaurant that accepts visa. A group of friendly English-speaking Poles offers me a ride to Poznan. One of them has just come back from a ten day hike in Spitzbergen, of which he narrates with excitement. ...
August 13. Hardcore Hitchin’
Hitchin' back to Berlin hardcore. I am a thirty-year-old man and here I am sticking out my thumb in need for a ride back to the city that depressed me so much. I have to get some stuff done, there is a lot of stuff to be done. Preparations. Rearmament. Make sure I'm good to ...
August 12. Poor girl.
I'll be writing about the awe of being; hence I'll be fine. Hush, hush! Make it denser, perhaps even by adopting a story line. Write with passion, write with heart. Do I envy Jonathan Safran Foer and his brilliant girlfriend Nicole Kraus? They find recognition, the press praising you to into the clouds and beyond? ...
August 11. Sunny Helsinki. Bookstore.
Helsinki is sunny. That's what it is. I spend a beautiful day walking around the city. My friendly host Hanna has given me a map and indicated some interesting places. This is my second time in Helsinki. I don't feel like a tourist but I see the city museum. Only a few centuries ago, Helsinki ...
August 10. All about Bragging.
What I also see is a video on Slavoj Zizek. My interest in this funny bear comes back when I hear he married a very pretty underwear model. Zizek's paranoid hyperphilosophy is very sexy but for me just an attempt to make things sound more interesting than they are. He could tell for example that ...
August 9. A short night later.
A short night later, Olga and I say goodbye and I drag my backpack once again through the metro system of Saint Petersburg, this time to hotel Oktobrskaya where the minibuses to Helsinki leave. Olga has even made a reservation for me and a very Russian looking man in a jean jacket approached me and ...
August 8. Pushkin and the Vegetarian in the box.
Happy birthday Caspar! Saint Petersburg is very pretty. Today, we visit a flea market with many interesting things on display. I remember a Russian magazine with Madonna the popsinger on its cover, lots of old clothes, binoculars, children's toys, old photo cameras, fur coats, vantage prams, records, engine parts. I socially walk on but feel ...
August 7. A Neva ending boatride.
Today we take a beautiful boatride. This is not supposed to be a touristic site but the boatride through the canals of St. Petersburg, passing all the beautiful facades and museums, the rattling Russian voice - don't forget to bring your Russian friends! - explains about the house where Pushkin lived, the tsar's palaces, the ...