Writing. Laughing.

What is the value of writing? Thinking, shared. The ability to think old thoughts again, sharpen them, create a monument for our live thinking that otherwise would exist only as marginal comments to whatever circumstances we've concentrated our thoughts on. Systems of thoughts can be dangerous; history is full of examples. See the system of the bible, promoting human superiority ("and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth", Genesis 1:26).

Deconstructive writing, that French fashion that had to be ahead of its time - is not really possible as much as it is necessary today.

I have an intuition about what this life is all about. It has a lot to do with the ability to laugh deeply, genuinely, affirmatively, to laugh in unison with the universe.

Rabat Ville.

Is there a way to express this unmediated experience? What we are looking for is a description of the places we visit "as they are" or at least as they appear to the newcomer. Playing ignorant, peeling off the layers of knowledge that have shaped our world. So I want to be able to describe the swelling crowd walking slowly on a big avenue here in Rabat, without knowing they came from the afternoon prayer. It was about one o'clock and the sight was magnificent. Uniformed men, businessmen, men with boots and men with sandals, some carrying a little carpet, parading back to work. I was the only one heading in the opposite direction, towards the Gare Rabat Ville to have an afternoon coffee and write these lines, and I had a peculiar feeling of unlawfulness as I walked up against the stream and smiled forth at everyone.

August 29. Young woman and the sea.

A short retreat is what I need. I am working on a perfect spot. A Greek island, the quietest of the Sporades, and I hope to catch up with my writing. It's just a feeling of being "on schedule" and I won't bother you with it. If there is something interesting to say I'll say it. But since it has become too much of a play, there might lay a virtue in silence today. A silence taught by the pretty face of nature surrounding us. A silence that doesn't lull your mind to sleep but keeps her awake as a pair of eyes on a sunny afternoon, with their lids tense.

We do nothing. I write many hours. I would have loved to explore the island, go on a tour, feel the wind in my hair, that sweet symbol of freedom. But there is something deathlike in the air; nobody can do anything about it.

The young woman and the sea.

She takes a few steps into the water and we see her standing there, long curly hairs reach her shoulders, playing gently in the breeze that comes from behind the island. We think she is contemplating the sea and it seems to us some sort of communication is taking place between the young woman and the sea, some invisible exchange of thought that make us step back in reverence. All of a sudden she disappears into the waves and a short moment later we see her black hair that is wet and straight now moving off the coast. The young woman stays in the water for a long time and we we cannot help feeling a slight shiver traveling over our back when we think of how her back must be cold and her skin wrinkly. But even from a distance we can see her smile and then, as sudden as she went into the water, she comes back. We drape a towel around her shoulders and see how she smiles in a way only the sea can teach us.

July 5. Who is the zombie?

Just give yourself a break. If there is a mantra of wisdom, giving yourself a break from all too much devouring self-criticism should be in it.

Play "Who is the Zombie?"

Cast:

- a random group of people

- a zombie; the zombie should look exactly like the people in the group

The zombie has to mix with the group and then the game starts. The objective is to discover the zombie by asking each other questions. The zombie can behave exactly like a human being. The only difference is that he does not have an idea of "self". The game continues for two hours (like a movie) and when time's up the zombie must be discovered. That means, the majority of the people in the group must agree on one person being the zombie. If not, everybody will be punished. What will happen? Will people of the group start a conspiracy against one person? Will they try to find a majority? Which person will they pick? Someone with a strange look on his face? Someone with a limb? Someone who talks in a strange way? We cannot tell. And frankly it doesn't matter. I used to think I was a zombie, like there was nothing "in there" (knocks on the head), like some "thing" was lacking and you have it. But hey! Soon as you think you are a zombie, you cannot be one because you think. Or maybe that's all one big delusion? We should try to play the game. What kind of questions could we ask? "Hello are you a zombie?" is not very sophisticated. "Do you think your neighbor is a zombie?" is better. "Do you think your neigbors think you are a zombie?" is still better. "Do you think your neighbors think you think they are thinking you're a zombie?"

Short Reflection about Writing

Sitting behind your computer screen or staring absent-mindedly at that empty sheet of paper, awaiting a spark of inspiration that gets our fingers going - we don't need to describe it like a glossy journalist would to express what we mean. Sometimes we are eager to write something, but nothing comes. We have fallen silent. What if we write anyway? What if we produce just any sentence, anything that pops up in our mind. Why? Because those random sentences will talk back to you. They will turn from meaningless utterances into the material of your next essay or story. If you write "the lazy cat will never find the mice hiding under the sink" without scratching your chin and pondering like I just did, this sentence can turn into a starting point of just about anything. The lazy cat could need a more exact description, the mice are actually on their way to a small hole in the baseboard because they live behind it. The cat could wake up any moment when the birds start to sing so the mice have to prevent the birds from singing. A children's story already emerges. You can think through the characters of mice and men more thoroughly and look! a grown-up story sees the light of day. The lazy cat will lose its hair and its attributes and turn into a mere abstraction; the mice will become daring thoughts hiding underneath the veil of reason and - the beginning of an essay about subversive and revolutionary thinking sprouts in your mind. The lazy cat might also become a very clear image in your mind, thus fueling a more poetic description. The lazy cat is stretching her legs / at ease with the world in a purr / draping herself between the rags / a content whorl, made of fur. I'm sure this could be much better, but the idea is clear. You can go in any direction. The random sentence you started with is something to chew on, and once you're chewing, you'll mix in the saliva of your faded inspiration, that will thus come back.

June 7. Mexico!

I get up at 5am again, this time to be picked up by a shuttle bus to Palenque, Mexico. It is an eight-hour busride including a long section on a bumpy dirtroad. But the scenery is simply beautiful. Busrides can be a real attraction. This one includes another exciting complication: the border to Mexico. We unload the luggage and embark on a long speedboat. The crossing of takes twenty fantastic minutes, because the Mexicans built the road several kilometers downstream (vexing the Guatemalans?). I peel a starfruit that I picked for breakfast and throw the rotten bits overboard as the boat splits the water bow high up. At the Mexican side, another bus is already waiting and immigration services work quickly. However, a few kilometers into Mexico, the trip is interrupted by the peculiar moaning of the Opisthocomus hoazin turistica. We have to cross a national park and the park official is demanding a 15 peso tax which is obligatory even if you're just passing through. The park reliess on local taxation to pay for helicopters to put out wildfires, they tell me. Some Germans in the back ask if they can camp here because "there is no way we pay this stupid rip-off tax". Other tourists join in and soon the conversation turns into a grumbling tumult with the park official. Over slightly more than one dollar. I think they should rethink their attitude, the tourists that are by definition filthy stinking rich. As for myself, I have another problem. I just left all of my remaining cash at the exit post of Guatemala so I can't pay the 15 pesos though I seem the only one willing to do it. So I step out of the vehicle, tell the park official I'm really willing to pay because I understand the cause being an environmental activist myself. What can I do? Sir, can I work, all I have to offer is what's inside my luggage and my muscular power. Can I do some work for 15 pesos? No. Then I climb resolutely on the roof of the minibus, untie my backpack and start getting out things.
"Un guia turistica muy buena en ingles. Muy recien."
-"No intiendo ingles."
"Pero senor, puede venderlo despues a otro turista. Tiene que pensar como un hombre de negocios!"
-"Hahaha. Pero no gracias."
"Este cuchara de una marca de alta calidad. Resiste el calor."
-"No necessitamos aqui."
"Crema de sol? Detergente? Camisa? Por favor..."
-"No, no... haha... es loco, haha...hihiahaha. Pffrrrrt..."
I am standing on the roof of the bus selling stuff from my luggage to pay for a Mexican natural reserve tax of 15 pesos and I feel so intensely happy! This is so good! Cool breeze in my hair, decisiveness in my mind and - admittedly - I'm in the center of all the attention. The roof of the bus is the stage and I'm performing.
"Quizas esta bolsa de documentos?"
-"No, haha, aqui en Mexico es diferente. No tenemos eso." He symbolizes his throat being cut by a violent thief robbing the travel wallet.
"Pero para vender a otro turista...?"
-"Ok, ok", another man says. "Compro la billetera para veinte pesos."
"Veinticinco."
A man gives me 25 pesos and I pay my taxes. I ask the park official to write down the name of the municipality so I can find it later, see on google earth if the wildfires have been put out properly. The conjuction of a German hand and a German accent urges me to get off the roof, because we are rolling on. As I get back in the bus, nobody talks with me. They have all paid their taxes because "there is no way around it". The guy next to me says it's not the money but the principle that matters. And do you want to know what I answer the guy?
"Look, I own a f.... PhD in philosophy and that's as close to principles as you can get. But I left that behind me man."
We still have 147 asphalt kilometers to go and I think about principles. All I can come up with is that I find them ugly when they are not capable of adjusting themselves to a different cultural context.

In Palenque, the tourists quickly disappear and I am alone again. I see an American couple in the bus station and decide to talk to them because the man has a pirate appearance like myself. They tell me they're on their way to Tulum (it's supposed to be a marvelous place). You could easily hitchhike in Mexico accordinig to them. I decide to try that on my way to Panchan near the historical Maya site, which is near anyway so I don't have to rely on cars. So I walk down the road and one car after another passes without responding to my stuck out thumb or the question mark I wrote in the air with my fist. I just want to know how far it is to Panchan, but no-one halts. That's good for the singing. It's great for the singing. I march singing everything between Bach and Bob Dylan. I manage more melancholical registers and even have a go at David Bowie's "Space Oddity":

"I'm sitting in my tin can
Driiiiiiving down the road
And the little feller out there
I see him sticking out his thumb
But I don't take him nowhere
Because I'm absolutely numb

Here's ground control to major Tom
Just hold on you're not alone."

Finally a car stops and the grumpy old driver tells me I'm almost there. I explain him he is the only one who pulled over and wish him all of God's love but he's already gone. Panchan is a lodging complex where you can stay in a dorm room for 50 pesos. How grateful I am for the shower! And the calory-loaded Pasta a la Carbonara! And the live music! And the delicious chocolate sold by the guy who made it himself. He has all kinds of flavors: orange, ginger, mint, chili, and pssst (whispering conspiratorially), a new one, a very special one - chocolate with hongos, mushrooms. In this region, magic mushrooms are very common. You need about fifteen for a trip and it costs you about 200 pesos. For the chocolate he used thirteen mushrooms, well ground and blended with the cacao. It's only 100 pesos for almost a full-fledged mushroom trip. Imagine how many crazy ideas you could get out of it. Imagine the hallucinations you fly through the jungle back to Maya times easily run up and down the temples, communicate with the Gods - time to make the priests redundant and wrap them in cotton - peel ripe mangos and avocados sharing them with sacral snakes that have seven head. Imagine the apotheosis of staggering bright watercolors pouring from the sky and ten thousand rainbows - I decide not to take the mushrooms because I think my imagination is doing pretty well anyway.

I can't sleep in the hot cabin and mosquitos bite me. I rub my skin with diclophenac sodium. Then I go drinking with a group of Mexican anthropology students. They are traveling around Yucatan and Tabasco, visiting Maya sites on their way. Myriam and Mario are really fond of their studies and it's good to talk with them and sharing a few 940ml bottles of delicious Corona beer.

I can't sleep still and get some fresh air outside. A strange noise from the cottage next to me. I walk closer. It's a woman screaming in the height of her pleasure. It goes on and on. I go back in my cottage but the noise is too loud. Panting, screaming, wheezing, groaning. For a short while, the man kicks in and produces a few short panting cries and then it's over. A few seconds later excited wows and satisfied wemadeits. So this is what the origin of new life sounds like, I think. And then: as a writer you can pick one little detail out of a vast range of events and mold that detail into a story. You're coiling and folding the general storyline of life you offer to your reader. Perhaps that's an important job. Perhaps this is all rubbish. When one guy decides to enlarge certain details he thinks are important, what's the big deal? Who cares? If he thinks the general storyline of life gets more streamlined, more interesting, more vital from it, good for him. Congratulations. But don't bother your neighbor with it. It's an individualist society where everybody has his or her episode of going to a romantic cottage in some beautiful country to reproduce. And the storyline remains as flat as ever.

May 9. Weary Cartagena.

I slept long, had breakfast with cheese bread, and wrote.
I went to eat something in old town, and wrote.
I went back to the hostel, and wrote.

"Some entries just say that he wrote."
-"Yes, it's boring, I feel like he is giving up."
"What do you mean, giving up?"
-"Like he's not believing in himself anymore."
"O, that's bad. Writers should believe in themselves."
-"That's what I think. Shall we help him?"
"As his characters? He sees us coming and laughs at us."
-"How do you know that?"
"It's common knowledge."
-"Let's just try, come on, it won't hurt."
"But what should I say. 'Hi I am your character, look at me I am very real I even have a birthmark on my belly how could I be so real if you wouldn't have done a good job?'. Should I say something like that then?"
-"For example. It's actually quite good. I think you've got talent. Now, shall we go?"
"Can't we just write him a letter, I'm a bit shy."
-"There's no need in writing him a letter."
"Why not?"
-"Because he will write it himself."
"So?"
-"So we have to talk to him in person, don't you understand?"
"O I see."
-"Let's wake him up tomorrow morning and tell him he should start believing in himself again."
"That sounds like a good plan indeed."

Story:
Enter Kirk and Hank in a dodgy bar in the port-city of Cartagena de Indias, northern Colombia. You can smell the salt and hear the sea. On the table we count two big beers and an empty ashtray. Kirk takes a gulp of his beer and says:
"So, how you're doing mate?"
-"Good, thanks for asking. Doing really well here. The food is tasty and cheap. The climate is a dream" Hank answers and drinks from his beer.
They are what we call old friends, they used to be in the navy together. Now Kirk has a job as a freighter captain and Hank just hangs around making some cash with his band.
"Hank man, shall we go for some women tonight?"
-"Okay."
"Come on, be a little bit more enthousiastic."
-"Sorry man, I'm not in the mood."
"Why not?"
-"It's empty in here". He points at his head. "I'm serious. There's nothing. You are talking to nothing."
"Come on, you are doing well. Said so yourself. Playing every other night with your band. What else do you want?"
Hank shrugs. He hits hard on the table and yells so that everybody can hear it:
-"Let's drink. Let's fucking drink tonight!" and he offers a bottle of rum.
"No wonder why it's empty in that chamber" Kirk murmers.
-"What's that?"
"Nothing."
They sit and drink for some time, and two hookers come in. That stand behind the man and gently caress their cheek bones.
"What's your name?" one hooker says to Kirk.
-"Kirk."
"Nice. We go fuck tonight? Very very good body very very cheap."
Kirk laughs and looks at his mate. They used to do this all the time when they were marines. Then he answers the woman.
"No thanks."
-"But I will!" Hank suddenly shouts. "I will go with both of you!" and he leaves with the two woman. Kirk drinks up the rest of both beers.
The next morning, they see each other on the street.
"Hey mate, how it is going?" Kirk asks.
-"Bad mate, I couldn't do it yesterday and they laughed at me. I feel so bad now."
"Maybe that's because your head is empty?"
-"So you finally believe my head is empty?"
"No. That was a cynical joke. I'll never believe that. Not if you write a whole encyclopedia about it. Your head cannot be empty."
-"I am suffering mate, beyond your imagination."
"Because of that empty head of yours?"
-"Yes!"
Hank will never be understood. Kirk will return to his ship tomorrow, and he will hear about the suicide only months later when he will be in Cartagena again. Empty heads are a bad illness. Kirk decides to take that very seriously from that moment on.

Kamiel's Daily Karma Rule: "If there's no Karma Rule, don't get upset."
This can't go on forever. You should try to deal with life without those daily rules. Just do something you never did before and write a short story about it. The story should not contain the word "I" though.

April 11. But he didn't use the soap.

Today, I wake up in a nice bed in a pension in Santa Cruz de Bolivia. This is Bolivia's boomtown, strongest growth of them all. Towns that used to be rich in colonial times are very poor now and vice versa. On the roof are my clothes and I think the morning sun already dried them. I will get them after my coffee and I'll see they are dry indeed. I make a cup of strong coffee and take pictures of the kid and the cat that were around. I decide to walk around the city today. The people I see on the street look friendly and calm. In a park I see a bump sitting on a bench and I talk to him. He tells me he used to live in the USA but returned to Bolivia because he's old now. He is sixty-seven years old and lives on the streets. Later he will show me where. I offer him to have a coffee together and we walk into a street café. They deny him to enter. It makes me upset. I have an idea. Buy him a shower and new clothes, a pair of trousers, a shirt, socks. Because he stinks like hell. So we walk around the mercado and buy him a nice white-pink striped shirt, a classic grey pantalon, a piece of soap and a towel. People ask me "tu papa?" and I answer "no, he encontrado en la calle". They laugh. Do they believe me? I take him to a public shower where I leave him for ten minutes. He has taken a shower but he has not used the soap. That bothers me. He didn't want to use the soap I bought for him? What to do? I cannot force him to be clean. He is happy with his new clothes and expresses his gratitude with a most adorable smile. "From head to toe new" he says to me in English. To camouflage the stench he is still spreading I spray some fake perfume in his neck and in his armpits. CK one - our version of CK One. Hope that'll do at least for the day. At least for the day, oh saint Vanity! Oh holy idol of the Vain! We go eat an icecream. He has chocolate and I have strawberry. With real deepfrozen chunks of strawberry. He is not denied entry this time. We eat the icecream with small wooden spoons. He is sitting in front of me on a plastic chair smiling at me and he will say to me he feels like Robert de Niro in a few moments. I smile back and we eat ice cream. Within half an hour, sitting in the sewer's place, I will see this on the wall: "Un alma generosa sera un alma prosperada" - Proverbios 11:25. In the shower, I will see the body of Justo, yes his name is Justo. Con mucho gusto, Justo. His body is old and wrinkly. I see skin but the form is strange, more like an insect than a man. I will leave Justo in the same park where I met him earlier. He lives there, on the street. And I will ask him "eres feliz?". "Si, soy feliz" he'll answer me. Then I'll cross the crowded street and wave to him a last time. I will be invited to a castle later today.

I'll continue my paseo through the heart of Santa Cruz and have my jeans repaired. They give me a cloth to cover my legs while I wait for my jeans to be sewn once more. I want to keep that jeans, I'll have it sewn in many countries. It will be an assemblage of the sewing skills of sewers from all over the world. Come on, world - unite in my pants.

I am enjoying my time in Santa Cruz. A couple of empanadas fill my stomach, and I walk into a museum where Jarin Johansen, a Peruvian painter exhibits some work from 2003-2008. "Mi camino" the collection is called and it consist of beautiful impressively colored canvasses of all materials. They depict women: nudes, dancing women, women playing a violin and a cello, women as landscapes. I liked his eye and leave a comment at the desk. It is getting dark. I want to go to a bar and drop by at a chess club first. A Bolivian from Cochabamba wants to play and we play four matches. I never enjoyed losing so much as that night. He overlooked nothing and just saw every mistake I made - and I made a lot of them. As I told him I am from Holland, he begins elaborating about Poland and the thriving agriculture there. Unfortunately I don't understand everything and can't respond in an intelligent matter. At least one time I achieve a draw.

I leave the chess club and enter the club next door. It is a local discotheque. I think I am the only foreigner around and received a good laugh when I tried to imitate the erotic dance style of the Santa Cruz teenagers. Very pretty girls danced with very lean boys that were moving their bodies like snakes, getting low on their feet while moving their pelvises in a copulating manner. I had a strange feeling of happiness watching the courting youth of this friendly town shaking their bodies to the hammering reggaeton beats. The music is loud, and the live band that takes over is not really my pair of sandals. So I decide to call it a night - of writing. I went back to the hostel at 1am, put some coffee on the gas and started working on the veranda, in the cool Bolivian night under the starry sky. When I look up now I see dozens of stars. This is the life, children.

February 14.

It is sunny outside but I write inside. Had a great lunch that filled my belly like it hasn't been filled for weeks. All the chemicals that will be involved in the digestion, plus the cafeine intake that I'm used to after a meal make me write like a fertile hen. It's a typical working day again. There are lots of people near the Adamastor, after all it's saturday. I will work until sunset.
There is no internet in the café where I am working so I will have to upload the whole bunch at once tonight. Blots of writing and digital pictures. If they're good enough, they can be digested by readers and they'll shit money on my bank account and from the money I can buy real things like bread, lobster, roastbeef, seaweed soup, Super Bock beer, Vinho Branco, Vinho
Verde, Portuguese cheese, fried chicken stomach. Perhaps I put a little announcement alongside these lines. Make a donation if you want the story to continue. If you want to know how the story will end because that's the amazing thing about it one day she will simply end. useless fuzz.

At night we walked around in Barrio Alto. It is amazing how many people are on those narrow streets, even in February. This city is so lively. I sought a comparison, a sister city with the same allure, but it's not easy. Well, Berlin in the summer, or Barcelona, or Munich in October. But let's cut that. Lisbon is Lisbon, okay?

Dijon and on and on...

So I went on. Let's tell the story of a typical hitchhiking day. The reason for hitchhiking is not saving money, but meeting people who are as different as possible, because that inspires. One or two of such days is advisable, not more.
Posting myself in Mainz near the Autobahnzubringer was easy. A man who I estimated in his mid 4o's picked me up with his Sedan. I saw he had a KL-licence plate, which means Kaiserslautern, which meant for me the right direction. He told me he had his own company and worked for the Americans. What he did exactly didn't interest me. But as he mentioned the US-Navy, I had to ask him about Obama. It was Obama-day, after all. In his personal opinion, his stressed the 'personal' part, it was a bit strange that a black man was elected. Almost every CEO and pilot is white, he said. Then he went on talking about Turkish people in Germany. He had a Turkish employee who returned to his roots and didn't integrate. He said that was a big problem. I don't know if he had racist tendencies, let's hope not. He dropped me of in Kaiserlautern at a gas station. There I could see some Obama and stay warm inside. After a while, and a lot of asking around, a young social worker in a VW-van took me to Ramstein, a Autohof near the Ramstein military base. Again, I was reminded of America, and of Obama's inauguration. I walked around the parking lots, asked a lot of truck drivers because they usually enjoy company, and ended up in a brand new BMW two French guys had just bought because it is 10.000€ cheaper in Germany. They literally raced towards the border, enjoying the absence of speed limits in Germany. I saw a peek of 200 km/hour on the display. At the French side, they kept the law and drove 130 km/hour. We didn't talk much. But we listened to the inauguration on the radio. I cried when Obama took his vow. The French guys lived in Troyes, which was a bit out of my route to Dijon, but that didn't matter. At a parking I finally caught a ride to Dijon from a very nice couple in a comfortable car. They even dropped me off at the station of Dijon. I asked for the address of my friend's place, which was la rue de Capuccines in the center of Dijon as I remembered from nine years ago, but nobody at the accueil knew it. They gathered around a plan de Ville and finally, with the help of the internet, they found it.
Outside of the station I met some guys who looked in need of accommodation. I gave them some tips concerning Couchsurfing in the internet cafe nearby. Then I went down the street and found the house of my old friend, the composer Jean-Marie. I remembered the little street from nine years before, and hit the doorbell. Although I had dropped him a message on Facebook, my visit came as a surprise. But it was great to see him again. We talked late, while Obama talked on the flat tv-screen in the background. The atmosphere was fantastic. I slept well in the studio in the basement, and practiced my French with the tv set which continuously emitted quizzes in bedazzling speech tempo.

The next day I spent as usual, went to a bar where I wrote a few pages. Well, first I made a few pictures of the Vieille Ville, which is very beautiful. Then I dropped in a bar with very good coffee and now I could use my newly bought little white eee-netbook pc, and type in some texts rapidly. I correct a lot when copying texts into the digital realm. It's a key step in my writing I guess. I spent about six hours in the bar, and then went home to meet Jean-Marie. He was preparing to leave again for Nancy to go to a performance, and I decided to travel on to Lyon the next morning. We promised to meet again in the summer when the weather is warm and the workload smaller.

St Petersburg #3. Hermitage.

I was in to some culture, and the next day I found some time to realize an old dream of mine: Visiting the Hermitage museum. It is located in seven huge buildings, and its collection is just huge. I concentrated on impressionist paintings, with the side-effect that I didn't feel like an absolute novice in artibus, because I knew a few works and yelled "Ah! So here you are!" to some of them. Here is a list of the works I liked most. Wonder what they look like? Google them...

Gijsbrecht Lijtens - Winter landscape
Frans Snijders - Fish market
Rinaldo Rinaldi - Taloni
Tizian - portrait Paul III
Louis le Lain - Milkmaid's family
Rouault - tete de jesus Christ
Picasso - trois femmes (1908)
Gauguin - femmes au bord de la mer
Gauguin - ou vas-tu?
Renoir - L'enfant au fouet
Georges Michel - landscape with mill
Hippolyte de la Roche - Portrait of Henrietta Sontag
Matisse - dance! (my favorite)

After a visit that turned into a bit of a rush near closing time, I headed back through very dirty streets. Yesterday's snow had turned into a grey ugly mash that entered my shoes. But it was okay. I wrote some six hours, and slept very late.

Kirkenes. Writing and a Do-it-yourself Crashcourse Russian.

I started to realize that getting to Russia from here was too easy to let the opportunity pass, and I got the necessary documents. The travel agency provided an "invitation". So I was invited without knowing anybody in Russia. Well, they knew me, or they knew all they wanted to know about me, and that was of course that I have money. The invitation was slightly under 70€, thanks more to the strong euro than to the Russian hospitality. The embassy sold me a visa, I left my id there and was told to wait until Wednesday.

So I had five more days in the quiet little town of Kirkenes, which I spent writing and learning Russian. Yes, I got hold of a penguin complete course for beginners, which was pretty good because it had the right pace of repetition. Isn´t it amazing that I could just walk in the community library and issue a card? I found so. All free of charge, no strings attached. So I picked up some literature too, to improve my not so vivid English you know from this blog. Actually, I picked Virginia Woolf, Henry Miller and James Joyce, so you know what you can expect here, language-wise. The library also offered internet free of charge, and I finally got my blog up to date (even a little bit ahead of me, since the Ullyses copy still resides on the library shelf (it has on own shelf) as I write.

I write this account in the local cinema by the way, a metropolitan-style big theater with comfy red chairs with cup holders, popcorn, cola, a well-paid employee, and a 50.000€ surround sound system. You just can´t believe it! We are talking about a 3.500 people town in a 10.000 people community here, and they have a (state owned, as you already guessed) movie theater that easily surpassed the standards in Berlin, Paris, London. This reminds me of another nice anecdote about Norway. When Michael Moore shot his documentary "Sicko", he also produced some footage on Norway, but did not dare to include it in his film because it was just too unbelievable! (if you don´t believe me, go check it out on YouTube). The Norwegians get a full year paid pregnancy leave, everything is provided for, it has the strongest social security system, in short it is the world´s wealthiest country, first on the WHO-list, where the US has a lousy 66th place.

So here I sit in this incredible cinema complex, which includes a small stage and bowling lanes as well, and two brand new apple computers (one of which I am staring at as I write). I met the employee and convinced him of the Cause, that is, of Couch-surfing and I stayed in his really nice apartment. To make myself popular, I said "I am the best pet you ever gonna get".

My novel grew as well. I write on paper, with a pen (a lengthy stick with blue or black ink flowing out of it´s tip by an ingenious process which makes use of capillary forces that you hold between your index finger and thumb and let travel over a sheet of paper in a suitable angle and towards undiscovered territory of your mind). I am so grateful I can do this right now, and I hope the result of my scribbling will rejoice - you, yes you, dear reader.

On a few nights we went out to a bar. There are four bars in Kirkenes, and they are frequented by the locals, who enjoy each other´s company. It was what I expected here in the North. I remember accidentally putting that black ball in the neighboring hole at the end of a billiard game with Thomas (the new friend I made in the cinema), thereby letting him win and saving my honor.

Thomas could also hook me up with a ticket for the new James Bond movie which they played, so I will go in as some kind of special guest tonight, which will make me feel like Bond himself, the exceptional One, the guy with a big heart, the guy above the law. I will write a review on the movie, and tell you whether or not it gave me the Quantum of Solace it declares in it´s title.

Tromsø #3. On the Big Truck.

Monday passed, I wrote. A friend dropped in and we played the oldest Super Mario game. I was very bad at it. At night, I went to a bar where they had a Blue Monday, which meant beer for just 39 Kr. That was just cheap enough for me to have one beer, no gulping involved. It was a nice bar by the way, decorated with Music Posters from Creedence Clearwater Revival, Neil Young, Nirvana, U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins, Bob Dylan, Madonna, and with drums and guitars on the wall. Smoking was not allowed inside, but according to Norwegian strict rules, drinking was not allowed outside. As a Berlin citizen, I was of course a bit, how would you call it?
Let's take the next day here, too. I wrote in the morning, then went to the student's center driv and the lastebilsentralen (cargo center) where I found out that Norcargo / Bring drives north. I got the cell phone of a driver, who took me shortly after 5pm to Tana Bru, of all places. It was a long night, but I enjoyed to be on his truck, having some conversations. Near the Finnish border (he drove through Finland to Kautokeino and from there headed north west) we saw a huge reindeer herd, which was claxoned away by the continuously used mighty horns of the big truck. The animals ran off the road. I asked if there never was a deaf one. Some Finns told me that reindeer were the most stupid animals on the planet, but I doubted, wondering why they could have survived for so long in those latitudes. It was a beautiful scene, seeing the flock making way for the large truck, one of a handful by the way, delivering goods to the upper north of Finnmark. Logistics become more easy to grasp in hardly populated areas, as to many things.

Back to the basics. I played with the thought of quoting Penn/Krakauer's Into the Wild for some time now. "It's hard to catch a ride up north". For me, it was all too easy from the Truck Terminal of Tromsø. "Not all is well on the hippy front". My 'hippies', the young couple with their three dogs, were very happy. "Happines only real when shared". That's true in Tana Bru.

Tana Bru is a little settlement, not more than a hamlet with a gas station, where they let me stay inside. I waited several hours and then got lucky again. When does it ever stop? When does the fairy point her wand at some other being than me? It feels sometimes like I am traveling in an aura of untouchableness, which is nice on the one hand, but if you yearn for being touched once again, it's not a very good idea. So this time a carbage truck driver offered me a ride to Kirkenes, 140 km further east, near the Russian border. They have do drive all the carbage of the region to Tana Bru since there was the only dump, he told me. Again, logistics and all the human structure we create on the Earth's surface became translucent, and in understanding I felt part of it. In the truck I thought about my writing, as my frame of reference converged with the window of the truck, which protected us from the snowy foggy, and completely dark, late afternoon.

My couch-surfing host was not there, so I had a small problem. I had to rely on the hospitality of the people here. First I asked if they wouldn't let me just be in the hotel overnight if I did some work there. Impossible. I decided to let it all out, resulting in the following conversation:

Can I just, you know, sleep inside on the floor and I'll work for you.
- No, I cannot help you.
Yes you can, but you won't
- No, I cannot.
Yes you can, but you don't want to
- No, I cannot help you.
Yes you can, admit it, it's as easy as that, you just don't feel like it.
- No, I cannot.
Yes you can, but you don't want. That's okay. You don't need to be afraid to say you want to let a fellow human being down.
- No I cannot sir. [bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep]

Amidst the bleeping sound of the hung up intercom system and the neon lights reflected in the fresh snow, I walked away. It was time to visit the church. And right in front of the church, fortuna's arrow struck again. A young German fellow, Daniel, led some youth group there filling in a gap year after High School, and told me it was no problem at all to stay at his flat. Saved for the night, again. I never run out of luck. Am I glad I didn't run for president in the US, I really would have hated myself defeating Obama.

Maybe you think Kirkenes it in the middle of nowhere. But there are actually some interesting things here. Yeah, let's render some statistics here! It is the youngest community of Norway, just celebrating the 150th anniversary as I write (that's right); it has the only point on earth where three time zones meet, the border between Norway, Finland, and Russia, and you can book an excursion, which I won't. It's enough that I have to put my clock ahead two hours when going to Russia. Daniel told me a nice Russian border story. It is absolutely forbidden to cross it without a visa (if you do, you end up paying about 1000€ and spending a night in a Russian cell). So when fishermen went fishing at a creek that constitutes the border in some part, they threw out their fishing-rod just a bit too far and it got stuck on the other side. And then... a hand appeared from the bushes and threw back the line. Sometimes, Russian border guards are nice guys.

Helsinki #8. Writing at the kitchen table.

The title of this post contains pretty much all there is to say about this day. It was rainy outside so I decided not to leave to Lapland yet. Anna-Sofia left me with all conveniences, which I really appreciated. Fortunately I was able to express my gratitude by going to the supermarket, where I found some German chocolate as a symbolic gift and tomatoes from Spain and Finland. I had to make a picture of those, because the make an interesting comparison. The Spanish ones were 1.90€ a kilo, the Finnish 3.40€. Later I learned the energy involved in glasshouse farming in Finland is even more than a truck ride from the far south of the continent requires.

I also tuned the guitar, first according to my own stubborn idea that all strings hat to be a quart apart, resulting in an E-A-D-G-C-F tuning which exists but is quite uncommon. After a glance in the Magic Box we call computer I got it and tuned a proper E-A-D-G-B-E. Unfortunately I had rehearsed my 'happy birthday' in the other tuning, and couldn't really make the transformation. By the way, Anna-Sofia just got 28.

I produced a few pages for my novel at the kitchen table, and was really content in the evening. I was happy I was able to spend another night with my incredibly friendly host.

Helsinki #6. A beer in the Belly.

Got up late. Apart from writing, done not much.

At night, we went to a well-known Helsinki pub called Belly. So we had a beer and played a game of table soccer. Two DJ's played some modern jazz which became pretty danceable after not too much alcohol. I ran into two Dutch guys who where on their way back from Moscow, and enjoyed speaking Dutch through the beats.

At 1am streets were packed with outgoing people, there was a really nice atmosphere. We were a bit tired though, and went back home.

Helsinki #5. Writing.

Friday, October 24th. Wrote a few pages and I was quite content because I could feel my fingers.
In the evening an other group came at Ilpo's place, and we chatted until one. They were nice exchange students who studied in Finland from France, Spain, and Germany. I got to speak German again which felt good. At night, they went to a bar while I stayed in the apartment, a bit tired.

Tallin #4

And so a few days passed. Hosted by very friendly Estonians that made me feel really welcome, I managed to write some pages and finish the German story I was working on, plus some other stuff. Well, this is not my writer's blog (as opposed to writer's block) anyway. I had a great time and I am really grateful to Alar and Ellu, and made, yet again, a few pictures.

This is taken just outside the medieval city walls of Tallinn. I recall being very brief about the Old Town in an earlier post. So I decided to make that up and quote from the UNESCO sign that they put at the entrance of it (it reads like a poem):

The Historic Centre (Old Town) of Tallinn
has been inscribed upon the World Heritage
List of the Convention concerning the
Protection of the World Cultural and
Natural Heritage. Inclusion in this List
confirms the exceptional universal value
of a cultural or natural site which deserves
protection for the benefit of all humanity.

Old Town of Tallinn is an exceptionally
integrally and authentically preserved
example of a late medieval (13-16 c.)
fortified hanseatic town with a
neighbouring feudal fortress on an rocky
hill, established in the process of european
east colonization.

Well, those were just working days for me, so I leave it here. No anecdotes to make you laugh, dear reader, but that will change soon enough, you bet... By the way, if you want to laugh, I can suggest Nick Hornby, whose 'Long Way Down' I read during my stay in Tallinn.

The next day I found out on the Internet that the cheapest Ferry to Helsinki (21 Euros) leaves at 8AM, and I decided to take that one. Had a very short but comfortable night at Ellu's place.

Tallinn #3

Another day went by in peaceful reflection and writing. I stayed at Ellu's place now, a very friendly Estonian whom I met at the party my first night there. I produced enough pages to be content and lie back in complacency at night.
I still saw something of Tallinn though...


Well, that's Estonia: you see the big black SUV? Alar told me, Estonians really are big spenders when it comes to cars, and I have seen rows of 2 ton steel giants, cramped into the tiny cobble stone streets of the Old Town. I was wondering how they drive them through the narrow medieval entrance gate when they go to work every morning. Speaking of the medieval fortifications, I entered some part of it for just 15 EEK (about 1 Euro). I was excited like a child (love that feeling) to climb up and down some stone staircases that went to towers that where pretty empty, except for the surveillance camera. One of the towers was called "Nun's Tower", and I leave it to your imagination why.


I know what you're thinking. No it's not your lack of imagination. I simply forgot to look for an explanation. So long.