Being in Granada in Spain was wonderful: enjoying the warm, winter sun and sharing wine with people from the caves. Camping in the mountains in Israel was amazing: sitting around the campfire, gazing at the stars and listening to friends playing Simon & Garfunkel on the guitar. Having a party in an underground pub with live music in Germany was great for being between lots of friends and dancing the night away. Now, this birthday, I’m not sure where or how it will be celebrated. Perhaps, with luck, Danielle and I will make it to Albania or Macedonia.

I’ll be 30 when I wake up in Athens tomorrow. It’s a funny thing; being in Athens, and using these numbers to keep track of your age like that.

(more…)

Dear friends,
Just as a quick update; I post one email I send to a fellow hitchhiker we met some months ago at the gasstation of Michendorf, Berlin:

Hey Jared,
After almost a whole moon spent on the island of Ikaria, Greece, I got
back to Athens and easy access to internet… It’s really nice reading
what you’ve been up to and hearing how you manage your nomadic life!

I also spent many nights outside – in caves, under trees, on the
beach, etc. No city lights & no moon – so it was amazing to look up at
the night sky which is covered in stars. Some people told me Ikaria is
a kind of ‘robbers’ island, and it’s definitely got a good feeling to
it. Met some great people, one time I came out of the high mountains
tired and cold and within 10 minutes of getting to a sleeping village
some good people invite me to their home. From there I started
hitching, and the first car to pass, an old lady with a dog, stops.
She points to the back of the pickup truck, I hop in, and enjoy the
fresh air and great views as we drive down close to the sea, up
through the high mountains and dodge the many goats which are roaming
the roads. She lets me out in Levkada, an awesome place where there
are hot springs in the sea. Of course I jump straight in for some
total relaxation… And just when I start wondering where to sleep I
meet four Spanish, German and Greek people whom invite me to a friends house, to stay in somewhat of a flatshare style, without electricity, but with home made wine, olive trees, and lots of home grown food… Such great hospitality.

(more…)

I always expected to be hitchhiking to Asia some day. The proper way to do it seemed to be by making a two or three year long trip, and spend this time living in the Middle-East, exploring India, Nepal, Tibet, Indonesia and Lao, and many other countries on the way. There’s nothing quite like slowly travelling 1000’s of kilometers overland, and seeing the landscape, customs and climate change little by little, while all the time meeting random friendly people on the road.

Today there are no little changes though. My whole biorhytm just got shifted by five hours, the climate just went from nice & fresh to very hot and humid, not to mention that I’m 8600 kilometers from home, deep into Asia.

(more…)

So, how does a nomad settle down? It is quite strange to live in a house, even when it’s a beautiful place in the middle of Berlin, with some lovely colourful people as roommates. So it’s been a couple of months of really starting to appreciate Berlin, and some short hitchhiking trips to Holland, for a bit of work, meeting friends & family. The first time back in that country was quite surrealistic, after having been gone for more then a year. Despite my mind being so full of new impressions and new memories of different places and people, it’s still a place I know so very well. In a way, it’s like nothing has changed, and in another like everything has changed. It’s more a place where I grew up, then a place where I now belong.

But well, I’m back in Berlin, it’s an early Sunday morning, and I’m inside a church. Which is a place where you can find me even less often then in Holland. I’ve never considered myself a religious person – I do respect some of the Christian values, but it’s hardly a good reason for me to visit a church on an early Sunday morning. Today there are very good reasons though, some reasons which have little to do with the original message of Jesus or whatever interpretation modern religion might have of it.

(more…)

It never ceases to amaze me how easy everything comes to me, how easy life can be – all the oppurtunities which present themselves and which I just have to grasp.

It’s Sundaymorning. Somethings happening, but I have no idea what. I move around a bit, trying to get back to sleep. Somebody is talking though: “Hey, I feel like going back today.” It is Rieke, on Thursday we hitched here, to Copenhagen, from Hamburg to celebrate midsummer with the Danish. We did not make any appointments about going back together though: ‘Fine’, I think: ‚´Enjoy the trip‚´.

I’ve got enough reason to be grumpy, I guess, when somebody wakes me up before the afternoon has even started.

(more…)

It’s Thursday, the 24th of May. Since the days and nights are hot the windows are wide open and thus I wake up to the sounds of a busy morning in Granada. I’m staying here with some students, one friend from Poland and another from Italy. At breakfast I meet them, and of course they ask me what I’ll be doing today. I reply that’s it time to leave beautiful Andalucia with it’s palmtrees, lazy Spanish, delicious tapa’s, and great alternative atmosphere in the street. It’s time to go south, make some stops to visit an old friend from meditation in Malaga, see the small English settlement on a rock on the south of Spain, and then hitch a boat to Africa. This continent is so close, how could I ever have waited so long with going there anyway?

(more…)