Posted 4:19 PM by Walker

A few weeks in Raleigh
autumn chills and warm colored leaves
I rest with old friends and this new mind

old mind creeps toward
i brush it away
shaking off viney tendrils of foreign intentions
standing ground in my space, afloat in the sea of straining patterns and urges
alone
at rest
charging

Posted 1:52 AM by Walker

Currently infusing myself with the works of Ken Wilber and David Hawkins from a deeply peaceful and stabilizing setting in Raleigh, NC. A couch, but a couch among true friends.

Posted 11:18 AM by Walker

NYC
September 17

Posted 6:19 AM by Walker

Time doesn't pass in days or weeks, but rather as episodes. I was in Berlin for days wandering and thinking and reading, but it remembers itself as just one moment, as does hitching from Berlin to Brussels, which only took one day.
Two episodes have passed since. The Prophets Oxford conference in England left me the the awareness of humanity's great struggle to survive in the next century. THE HUMAN RACE HAS A 50% CHANCE OF MAKING IT THROUGH THE CENTURY, according to physicists, ecotheorists, mystics, and others.
Now I'm in Amsterdam, surrounded by soft drugs, high prices, canals, brisk weather, a good book, and friendly locals.

Posted 5:43 PM by Walker

Amsterdam to New York City- $300

Yikes!

Posted 1:01 PM by Walker

Guess the keyboard: you have to push the shift-key to make a period, or else you get a semicolon? The unending French!

French fries came from Belgium by the way.

I returned to Brussels this morning, about about 24 hours of hitchhiking. The first ride from Berlin to Dusseldorf took about 6 hours, with only 2-3 hours ETA remaining. Unfortunately the next three rides took about 5 hours including waits. Stopping completely at a motorway ramp till 2AM, it was time to sleep. Without a tent or sleeping bag what's a stranded hitcher to do? Just borrow a sleeping bag from the Lituanians he brought with him! I met these two along the first stretch of the journey, while I was stopping for coffee with my driver (we didn't speak a common language, so he kept getting sleepy and buying coffee, for me too!) The Lits were miraculously going to Brussels too, and even after we split up for the next leg of the journey, we got dropped off at the exact same place, reunified, just like Germany. The French keyboard also makes commas quite convienient. Back to the motorway ramp: After 8 hours of sleep on the little chunk of straw-covered grass between a motorway and the ramp that leads up to it, we snagged a ride straight into town.

I have a list of flight options back home from the Netherlands, to various airports. RDU is the most expensive. So I ask, who wants a ROAD TRIP with a PURPOSE! To pick me up of course.....

Washington DC is affordable and reasonably close. NYC is cheaper, but not much cheaper. So I plead, will anyone come get me? I'll even pay for the coffee. If not, no worries, hitchin's a breeze.
I'll try to get a ticket between September 1-12, from Netherlands to WashDC, and hope for the best.

I'm also taking orders for Belgian chocolate. Doesn't beat Savage's of course.


The midday sun prompted a mid-sidewalk shirt change. I had a grey Tshirt on top of my trusty Thermax. As I reached over my shoulder to pull off the T, my finger went right through the fabric! I got it off without further carnage, but noticed a series of "suspense holes" leading up to the recent "big one." This may just be a warning shot, for the calamity that lies ahead.

Posted 5:14 PM by Walker

10 days in Berlin. I stayed in the Falafel District, every block laden with scores of Middle Eastern sandwiches, salads, and treats, for cheap. I saw a semi-English Bowling for Columbine film. I saw the wall. I took the "Story of Berlin" tour. But most of all I started Lila, the sequel to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Most Insights are coming from this book, and your emails, far more than tourist stuff or traveller stuff. Being on my own helps. Which is why I'm travelling anyway.

I plan to start hitching early in the morning to Brussels non-stop on the motorways to stay with a friend a few days. From there I catch a flight to London, en route to Oxford for the Prophets conference.

After Oxford, I fly back to Brussels (ticket cost two cents each way!) on August 26 and hitch to Amsterdam to visit the squat house with a net cafe and crypto seminars inside, ASCII. You see, the Chaos Communication Camp event inspired some dormant technology project genes, that need some excercising before making the final decision to grow some more or replace them completely. From Amsterdam, I will await inspiration, volumtuous women (NO coincidence with the red light district,) and hope for a return flight home.

Posted 11:38 AM by Walker

Hey you - I've been thinking of when to go to the US. But this email from air-hitch tells me that obviously it is time for YOU to come to Europe!

$157 to Madrid!


Not every day we get the chance to offer you a seat on a flight 10 days before
departure.

Well we got one now !!!

Take this special offer for $135 and reserve your seat to Madrid, Spain from JFK
on August 18.

This is a one-time offer so please pass this email to your friends.

Register for the flight until 8/18/2003

* $22 Airport taxes and the registration fee are not included.

Posted 6:51 PM by Walker

Some time has passed and I'd like to ensure everyone that I'm still alive and kicking. Lots of 'things' have happened, just like before this log started. And some of it is funny. This raises some questions about this travelogue. I have heard comments asking for shorter posts. Some want more frequent updates to facts (where is he, what's he doing) and I have had this sortof plan to write all sorts of stuff for quite some time, with terse little suspense snippets tossed lightly on the web in the meantime. But this pressure to write, well stops me from writing. It's why I quit school. After the faultline appeared in my value system in Vienna last year, the crack has spread to where I just can't do anything because I'm supposed to (or feel like that's why I'm doing it.) It has to be for a real intention, for some real damn reason. So why write anyway? Is this a pulse meter comunmicating my vital status to loved ones and overlookers from afar? Amusing travel tales ('Funny Shit That Happens When You Travel'), adventure stories, me talking about what I'm thinking about, a way to offload some internal pressures, reposted emails that deserve broad attention?
It can do all of these things, but undeniable is the speaker-audience relationship. I write, and you read. Letters to the author are appreciated. This isn't a web version of a normal conversation, but something completely different. There's distance here. Impersonal, like a TV show or newspaper or book reading or public demonstration. But not really - back up the truck. I can't communicate with anybody in a specific, you-tailored way. It's general. Granted, I tailor to the people I think will read this, but that could be a lot of varied people. It's the same words, whoever finds them. And to honest, it's got to be honest for everyone.

Stealing the next bit from myself, from an email:

After reading Evasion and tales of trainhopping and hitchhiking and dumpster diving and trying them all out one by one it brings me to what I'm doing right now. Some have asked me how the 'trip' is going, or the 'tour.' Some ask about places I've been or what I've seen. They tell me to 'have fun' 'learn a lot' and 'be safe.'
I really don't think it has anything to do with any of this stuff. The places I go, stuff I see, people I talk to, books I read, adventures/projects/schemes (lumping together intentional focused action events) are really just catalyst for the insights they bring. Insights are really the juice - where it's at. Memories of people, places,things fade, but insights change you. It's not learning in the information-gathering sense, it's knowledge in the becoming sense. One becomes knowledgeable.

How am I guiding this process? Just paying attention to detail. Ah, so for the records, where have I been since Salisbury?
No, I didn't see Stonehenge. Hiking in Abisko, Sweden with John, visting with Salisbury-forged Swedish friend in Stockholm, Venice with John and Brigitte (rumor has it she's my stepsister, but what does 'step' mean anyway?), served a Vipassana meditation course in Belgium after night in the park (completely safe with a big iron fence around it. I reasoned that nobody else would break INTO a park to rob and harrass only people that break into parks,) and spent the last 8 days in Prague, including a couple days with Honza on the lake away from the city. Yesterday, arrival in Berlin, and tomorrow on to the Chaos Computer Club Campout nearby with some friends I made in Prague and around 3000 other hackers in tents with internet access. Oh and by the way, I gave my tent sleeping back tarp sleep sheet sardines and spare change to Honza.
Please send plans for a mud igloo.

Back to those insights. I'm now reading Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Such crystalization (to borrow an analogy from the work itself.) It's gonna take a while to let all these ideas sink in and simmer and become a part of my way of thinking. The process has started, and momentum builds quickly, and nothing has hit home like this in a looong time. The right book at the right time. Wouldn't have been interesting a year ago, and I blew it off anyway. 'How could anything that popular be any good?' 'And my days of small engine repair are history!' Already in the bookmarks on the main site is a link to a followup essay I sense I must read.
So I didn't say anything about the insights, just the book that triggered them, but maybe you should read it before I start.

After the campout, plans are empty till August 18. I fly from Brussels back to England for The Prophets Oxford Conference, and hope to meet some interesting characters. Looks a bit new age, but some of these speakers are definetely solid Nobel Peace Prize Winners so it's a go. Meanwhile there must be some hackers with info for how to spend the middle days. Otherwise, why not hitch back to Prague? I found the hostel worth coming back for, Sir Toby's. Nevermind the website - the staff are like long lost friends and where else is there piano in your bedroom? The Pictionary took the cake, even compared to the nudist lake outing (I didn't know, I didn't know!)

After Oxford, who knows. I accidentally bought a flight back to Brussels for August 26. But funds are running lowish, friends are leaving Europe, and the route ends from there. Plenty time to think of more dots to connect, but it might be time to find a hut, tent, or apartment to settle for some writing reading coding or ranting or whatever I do.
Internet is expiring. peace and love

Walker

Posted 4:31 AM by Walker

latest word from one of my "reliable sources:"


So, I have info on Praha (or Prague). The best place we ate was Harmonie Cinsha
Restaurace (Chinese Restuarant) on Seifertova 18, Praha 3 - Zizkov 130 00.
It was good food and cheap! We really didn't have the cash for a real meal there.

We all stayed at the Clown and Bard Hostel (Borivojova 102 or www.clownandbard.com).
Ask to stay in the attic (the 50 bed room) and ask for "you-see" that's how you say
the guy's name. He's the Finnish porn writer we drank with...he works there. He's a
lot like you.

Below this Hostel, if you go out the door and turn right and walk (I think!)
straight for two blocks, on the 2nd one you should turn left and there's a quality
cybercafe there! A good one! Go in the afternoon and it's cheap and there's no one
in there.

Your best bet is to get a "Praha City Spy Map." You'll find it all labeled there.

Posted 4:30 AM by Walker

The information beats fast fast fast, the fast forward of city at night, lights of your mind blur into the backdrop of no solid canvas, blinking, gasping, pulsing, the memes, the thoughts, and yesterdays plans become tomorrows dreams and tommorows dreams become yesterdays memories; come go come go.

nothing never stops; moving


arrival at Praha

Posted 4:40 PM by Walker

Coming from the land of waffles and chocolate, I prepare to cook for 100 people. Actually there are 9 cooks, but still 100 eaters. I'm at the Belgium Vipassana Center, about to start a course as a server until July 27. Please keep the emails coming! I read them all, though usually my mailbox has about 100 emails, and 90% spam. What joy the nuggets of uncommercial dialogue bring this weary traveller! I will write the mega update once I get some real internet, which will probably be in two more weeks.

So far - 3 new friends to add to the cult, er group, 650 pages of books read, 5 countries visited, 5 free nights, gallons of yogurt consumed, and blast its time to go.

bye folks

Posted 7:09 PM by Walker

Suffering from a GIANORMOUS vegetarian all you can eat buffet at Herman's. After a dozen flyers around Stockholm and a discount (which I forgot to use) from the hostel, marketing psychology combined with a growing distaste for high a la carte Swedish food prices led to a decisive three plate plus dessert gastronomic side splitting indulgence. Blah. Flight to Pisa in 8 hours, Radiohead in 44 hours.
Await stories. No Swedish fish, yes Arctic Circle.

Posted 6:26 AM by Walker

Yo I'm in Sweden, more later!

Posted 8:09 AM by Walker

Where were we? Ah yes, onward to the hitching experience, circa June 13, London. After a quick check in the hitchhiking guide, I wrote down the instructions (yes there are instructions, just like making mac and cheese, except instead of a stomach full of starchy cheap food science,you end up in a different side of the country!) and took the train to the edge of London. Having not really taken part in the culture of getting strangers to let you in their beloved little units of wheeled personhood, I was a bit unsure about the way this thing usually went. From the movies you think of just standing beside the road, a car pulls up, you jump in, and off you go. Well, it IS pretty much like that. Except for the first car, which stopped in the middle of the road and (4 lane city road, not unlike Raleigh's Inner Beltline area Glenwood Avenue) sped off before I knew what was going on. But it DID stop!
  I had a little sign, begging for the highway of choice (M20, PLEASE!), providing the crucial direction element, while obscuring my true destination in case the driver was a freak and I had to mildly ficticiously claim, "No, sorry, sir, thanks for the offer, but, uh, well, I'm actually heading to Outer Mongolia."
  Never fear, the van was near. A white van, stopping at the gas station, whistling my way. Complete with two local lads, about my age, on the job. I'd pick up a vagabond too if I was getting paid to do it. I boarded the LEFT side, wondering why I was going to have to drive, until I noticed they had cleverly moved the steering wheel to the RIGHT side to avoid any chance of a vagabond driving mishap. One of them had been to Paris, to EuroDisney, but otherwise no other travel experience. "Come on, it's like 2 hours and less than $100 to anywhere in Western Europe!" I withheld my exclamation, saving the energy for digesting a Clif Bar instead. The other chap had a schmoehawk, lovely! They dropped me off outside of London at an exit where another highway converged with the now interstate-like road we had been travelling on.

Danger Will Robinson!
As it goes, there are many little snags to keep a good fellow down (like expensive internet and train strikes), and little trinkets of quasi-divine intervention, to lift him up (like yerba mate tea, and happy mulleted truck drivers.) Much of this battle is about learning to ditch the former for the latter, which takes deliberate action. The hostel employee in Salisbury, disloyal to his own internet services, told me there was free internet in the library. And there is, but you only get an hour then it logs you out, and you can only log in twice a day, and the library man has to do it for you. And it just gummed it up (blasted StickyKeys!) and had to log out. Never fear, this whole log out scheme, cleverly designed to thwart hackers, doesn't work when you watch the attendant type in his password! Conquering Wiltshire Libaries, yes!

Onward...

  The second leg of the journey, was travelled by a second white van. This time a verbose jolly worker, happy to have someone to talk to. He's about to move to Spain, after taking 5 years of preparation, including 2 years to persuade "the misses." A good woman, though not with the same degree of volumtiousness as his former fiance in Holland. His feet were colder than her boobs were big. Now he has a wife and kids, restricting his flexibility. He seemed a bit regretful, but rather than mope too much, he's moving to Spain! He slapped me on the back and dropped me at another motorway intersection.
  At this point, I was wondering about the white van phenomena. Was it a fluke, or did I attract them. Come to think of it, I was actualy practicing a bit of the ol' white magic. I had been remembering the first white van, and tried to visuallize a vehicle coming to pick me up. I just so happened to visuallize a white van, because it was fresh in my memory. And another white van had stopped. This time, I was hoping for a car, preferably an extremely small European one for kicks. So I visuallized a car coming to stop for me, and then forgot about it. Sure enough, the first stopping vehicle was a little green car. Between you and me, let's not make too much of this, but the car I was imagining just prior to the actual stopping, was also green! Next time, let there be an elephant.
  This guy took me straight away to the ferry, as he was also going to Paris, but couldn't take me with him because of the way the booking worked. He had hitched around Australia and New Zealand in the Seventies, was well travelled, and was basically returning a favor he had taken so many times. In retrospect I should have asked for a ride after the ferry, but I didn't realize there were multiple ferry operators, and I guess he must have been on a different ferry, because that's the last I saw of him.
  A word about ferries. Expecting a simple sit in your seat and stare affair, I was completely unprepared for the high price of $25 or so, and the madness of a casino, multiple restaurants, a pub, and duty free shopping.
  Arriving to Calais, the real action starts, as this was getting late in the day, and I had the longest leg of my journey to go...
  My plan was to stand by the entrance to the main motorway to Paris, hoping a tractor trailor or car coming from the ferry would pick me up. There was also a truck stop nearby I could probably walk to and look for a ride there. Hours passed. Clearly in view of the sign marked "Paris", pointing up the ramp, was me, with his own signed, clearly marked "Paris." Couldn't they appreciate an accurate transcription? Isn't imitation the highest form of flattery? A car slows down, a shout, and an extended middle finger. More waiting. A car slows down, the driver gestulates, and they go around the roundabout one more time as if giving me time to "get ready" and they zoom past me, shrugging apologetically. More waiting. A car stops, offering a ride to some French town I've never heard of. "I'll take it!" I exclaim. Oh whoops, it's not actually on the way to Paris, sorry for your troubles. I thank them for stopping, continue waiting. Trucks start passing! All kinds of trucks. Steering wheels on the right, steering on the left, English on the back, Danish on the front, Czech on the sides. Many of them pointed to their left, some shrugged or shook their heads as if apologizing. Nobody's going to Paris? The more Eastern European the truck looked, the more guady the decoration and happy the driver. Silhouetted bikini ladies and Confederate flags are no match for Romanian colored feathers, leather cords, Hungarian strings of beads, and get this A BIG OLE STEER HORN in the front dash of one fashionable trucker. Perhaps I should have packed a lasso. Probably not, I might have snared one of the many mullets the truckers tend to sport.
  The sun had gone down, so it was probably nearing 11PM (long days in Europe, I tell you.) I was too weary and alieaned to infiltrate the truck stop. Well, there's always an early train the next morning. I was to meet Greg at the airport between 10 and 11 AM. So I walked a few miles, following signs in industrial and creepy Calais to the closed train station, noting a first train to Paris at 6AM. Excellent, just the pesky problem of where to sleep, as the train station was locked. Just around the corner was a park, which could be quite suitable. It was well lit, and nobody else was to be seen. I wandered and eventually settled under some bushes again a row of hedges, though I was still visible if anyone happened to look in my direction. Who's gonna come through till 5AM anyway? I unfurled the Tyvek tarp, shoved my pack under a bush, and tried to sleep. Shortly thereafter, a group of chortling French guys about my age wandered through and spotted me, pausing, and laughing. I pretended to be passed out, drunk, slumped over my pack, praying for nonconfrontation. Figured I'd pull the the long discussed yet never attemped have a fake seizure escape trick if it came to it. They passed. Wasn't long before cackling howls filled the streets, with goons of all types passing just feet from me on the other side of the hedge. Sleep deprived, unfed, and completely non-French (not even a twisty mustache), I was actually a bit scared for the first time. Finally they left, I slept a bit, and made it to the train on time.
  I took the TGV 180MPH train to Paris, watched the country side fly by, metro'd to the airport train, and waited. And waited some more. Don't these things come every 15 minutes? I'll get there just in time... More waiting. More travellers gathered. Discussions in a variety of language. Aha, French deviousness. The strikes are still on! The trains come to the station, but refuse to go to the airport. Never fear, there's a bus, on the other side of Paris. More metro, slightly getting lost at the bus stop, missing the bus, waiting 15 minutes for the next one, much suspense, oh Greg how your stories and travel strategies must justify such suspense! Finally at the airport, a bit after 11. Flight is at 1:55, perhaps he's still in ticketing. No luck. I snuck past security and went up to the boarding counter. The attendent broke the rules for me, and check for Greg Lewis. None. James Lewis. None. What's up? Did Greg tell me the wrong date? What's going on? I ran around some more, trying to scheme a way to get to the gate. He must be there if anywhere. Nearly got pass the boarding pass checker guy, but a moment's hesitation kept me at bay. So I must buy a ticket, and just return it! No problem. What, they're €3000? Umm, sure, I've got 3 credit cards and a check! Nada.
  Despair and fatigue, desires for the comforts of expensive airport croissants and coffee, and no potable water in the bathroom, just for the weekend. I slump in a booth of Burger King, watching busses and planes taxi, probably laden with the residues of with my unwashed lost travelling comrade fate just wouldn't let me meet. I pull out my journal and write the date. June 14th. Oh wait, no that's not right because Greg's flight is on the 15th. Oh shit.
  At least I was a day early and not a day late.

  After a night of street wandering, a posh hostel (embroidered sheets!), and successful transit, I was in the airport once again, 23 hours later. Hello Greg! Much story swapping and scheming, and fond farewells.

  More Paris wandering, more French bread, reliving the hostel, bakery, and pizza shop (mushrooms and an egg cracked on top!), meeting cyclers from Seattle, a journalist from Indiana, and a stinky French dude containted in the bed below me.

  After some frustrating phone attempts, I managed to get in touch with Chateau Bel Enault. Curtiss was WWOOFing there and suggested I join him, unofficicallike. What a Godsend. I took the first train, and stayed through Friday night. Basically, in exchange for working in the gardens and around the yards, I got a nice place to stay and lost of fresh organic veggies grown right out back! Emily Burns joined us, and rounding off the group to three Raleigh folk, two girls from Penn, and Swedish girl who incidentally is returning to Sweden just after I get there!
  Free time at the Chateau was spent mainly with a bit of physical fatigue, not aided by the massive cheese and bread consumption, and a nice bike ride to Utah Beach. This is a huge beach, very solemn, duly so. Thousands of Germans perished at the hands of American troops at our very feet. The closed tourist museum was a bit cheesy, bunker-like with fake (10" spirals) of fresh barbed wire to give it a battle effect. Tourist stuff is tacky everywhere.
Saturday morning, ready for Solstice Stonehenge weirdo action, by rail and ferry I made it to Salisbury late evening. Something was strange about the attitude in the air. I made all my trains on time. The sun was shining. Salisbury is clean and nice. This is just too good, I thought. And it was. I called my first choice hostel. Cheap and small, the reviews are great. No answer. No signs on the door. Must be out of business. No worry, I walked to the other (big) hostel. No rooms. But hey I could camp for £11. Hmm, guess I'll work something out with sticks for tent poles. Back to the normal state of difficulty. First guy I talked to is an incredibly excited archeology student, all about some Stonehenge. And the festival last night rocked. "Last Night?!!" Yep, I was a day off, again. This time, in the wrong way off. Blast! I missed the shadow from the heelstone, and the 15,000 people that obscured it. I missed the drunken travellers,and England's finest New Agers and thier white robes and bongo drums. And it started to rain. I rushed to erect my tent, aided by a slightly too big tent pole loaned by the archeologist. As I was erecting, so was the other camper. Except, shall we stay, he had a slightly different style. Though his tent was finished, it was actively housing his girlfriend and him, being very active as well.
It rained all night, the first rain in a month. Most of my stuff stayed dry, except of course the tent and tarp, and some of my books and the pack itself. Sunday was spent drying stuff out. This set of experiences (and this writing style!) started to lose some creativity, so I decided to test the "people don't like to question, especially enough to take action" theory. I tied my still wet tarp to a tree "as if it was supposed to be there" and let it flap. Around this time I met the guy from Chicago, who told me how he slept through much of the Stonehenge madness, because it was so tiringly mad. I was reluctant to talk to this guy, for he was wearing a shirt proclaiming, "Holland Rules!" but I later came to know that was due to the Holland people he met the night before. He was drying his stuff out in the park, not quite brave enough to actually just leave it, as I was planning. And it worked - nobody took an important looking scrap of construction Tyvek from a tree in a park, though I saw one ol chap staring at it and doing a double take as he walked by.
The decent hostel actually is open, and I've been there since. Last night I met another Swede, who may be there when I'll be there, and may show me around. Excellent. Meanwhile, three more minutes on the internet counter, and I've got my usual economical routine of eating last-chance bread and peanut butter, wandering, reading and writing about computer networks. Tomorrow, on to losing a head!

Please please comments!

Promise, more succintity and less fluff next time - working on this whole journalist thing.

peace

Posted 2:41 PM by Walker

I'm in Salisbury, reading and writing for a few days till the Douglas Harding conference starting, on June 25. Lot's of stories and mishaps to relate, but the closing hours of the only net cafe in town and my salary are tough rivals to combat!

I'm drying up, in a desolate bed and breakfast, expensive English prices, low on yerba mate, minimal internet, and short of books! Trains not to be hopped, still poleless, and no Krispy Kreme. I'm nothing without my schemes and dreams...

The news reeks of Prince William security breach guy (who talked his way past security, after getting caught climbing the fence, and charged the stage at his 21st birthday!) I just watched Big Brother and a Spice Girl special on TV. What more evidence do you need? It's getting bad.

Send me your stories, come visit, meet me in Siberia, help me crack the how-to-get-free-flights-with-forged-vouchers-or-sneaking-onto-cargo-planes puzzle, offer cheap recipes to try, attempt to ship me a goat, or anything, please!

REQUESTS TAKEN: Mini schemes, weird photography requests (action included perhaps...), preferred rants.

14th Century Chateau (cheers to Curtiss and Emily), Stonehenge update, and the full hitchhiking, Calais troubles, Paris struggles, and French food temptation stories will come, promise!

peace

Posted 9:53 AM by Walker

I got to Paris yesterday after much fanfare including three hitch lifts, a James Bond like character, treachery in Calais, low and high speed trains, French transit strikes, much Charles de Gualle airport action, three hours of stories with Greg, and why do the French take silly little dogs with them everywhere?

Internet here is bloody expensive so the full report when once a cheaper place surfaces.

Now the decision for where to go till the Solstice Stonehenge celebration. Curtiss has the best info - await an email my friend.

au revoir!

Posted 4:42 AM by Walker

Good Morning you bloody Americans!

Yesterday was devoid of hitchhiking action, but never fear I now am the proud new owner of a brand new Michelin France Road Map.

A 12 year old dude just walked in this net cafe with a Napster T-shirt. Doesn't he know? Napster is DEAD! Confirms that sneaking suspicion that England is a third world country after all, merely pretentiously mimicking the popular Western European and American culture. Denialists call it "retro." Denihlists, on the otherhand that's philosophy for another time.

Allow me to take this moment to profusely apologize to anyone and everyone I've ever insulted or craned my head back in a snobbish manner toward in regards to thier so-called BIG ASS BACKPACK. I feel like I've sprouted another torso, bearhugging me with the compassion of a sumo wrestler, and the usefulness of a parachute on a cruise boat. Yes, I need this oregano. Yes, I need this Magik handbook. Yes, I need 4 liters of water. And yes, I need a tent that doesn't have poles.

Yesterday started with a funk, which free hostel coffee quickly cleared, but after hours of wandering in idyllic peaceful residential London (surprisingly quiet and attractive) a shopping spree ruined all hope of lasting clarity. Never mind, that what park bench naps in Hyde Park are for. And the nap under the tree.

It is time to go test some white magick, and get a hitch to France. Goal: Paris by tonight. That gives me about 12 hours for a 4 hour journey. Yes, I know, if he has a mullet exercise caution. If his dog has a mullet don't get in the car.

I have a request. I'll be in France hopefully tomorrow, then no plans till the 21st at Stonehenge. Any ideas for cheap fun in France? I still need to write this paper before NCSU sues me, barring your innovative vagabonding ideas, I'm eyeing to settle in a cheap village hostel for a week of writing, drinking local wine, and munching on French brie, all the while cackling "Ah haw hawn!" as the French are apt to do.

If you've listened to me rant, you've probably heard my
Acknowledgement Theory.
Far from complete, a few words of acknowledgement:

Props to everyone who stayed up with me before taking me to the airport. Sara, Mike, Steph, Tim, Savage, and belligerantly intoxicated Spencer whom I decided I should give a $3000 laptop to. Also mad props to the rest of the support team, Amy S for the custom embroidery, Amos and Laura for the sea salt potato chips. Honza for funding a night in London, and Vince for his noble efforts to maintain a consistent lifestyle. Amy and Carrie W for the soup, Jimmy for grimacing at the mess I left him. Many others, who liberated me from my material possesions.

Brit down from me is talking to himself and twitching at the terminal. International possession.

The Underground (subway), not to be surpassed by modern advertising techniques such as "Got Milk" and Raleigh's funky anti-grease-in-the-sink-as-you-may-have-seen-on-the-side-of-a-CAT-bus campaign, has commissioned an artist to draw up little flyers featuring Peanuts style characters, with phrases the Hallmark Corporation would smile at:
"Love is standing on the right side of the escalator"
"Love is not jumping into a car with a closing door"
"Love is holding onto your ticket"

I must be in the right place, now one step closer to unearthing the mystery of love - hail to corporate guidelines!

Now the Brit is clapping some and muttering with increased rapidity.

More clapping. He's making me feel all tense. Seriously think he's got an entity.

They're playing Michael Jackson! Only this song is "hee-hee", and "Whoo" free. "Heal the world, make it a better place, for you and for me, and for the entire human race. There are people dying, if you care enough for the living, make a better place for you and for me. Heal the world" If only the demon-Brit would sing to it...

Enough time spent in a net cafe for today. Some personal emails, and then sticking the thumb out!

peace

Posted 4:11 AM by Walker

Let me share with you an email from Honza. I found it very useful, but couldn't be so greedy as to squander this valuable info:


Great, Walk man! I'll send the check to your folks. I'm so jeleous. Dude, you are
doing what I want to do one day. Too bad I'm not there to play guitar and raise
money in Paris while you dance and sing. I can't believe you're just going hard
core hitchhiking, that rocks. Carry a knife, eh? Hope you know so french...let me
give you a quick tune up lesson:
1) Qui a coupe la fromage? - Who cut the cheeze?
2) Voulez vous couche avec moi? - Would you like to sleep with me? (Good for those
french whores, wear a rubber dude. Ohh, yea forgot you're being celebate.
3) Donnez moi ton pantalon! - Give me your pants!

That should be the basics to get you through a pretty normal day, good luck.

Honza

Posted 6:41 PM by Walker

London is bloody expensive!

Mom: The French don't all hate us. First conversation I had was with a French dude in the hostel, who invited me for a beer and told me about current EU politics and his pursuit of a law degree within the British University System at age 21.

Boots: intact
Chocolate: intact
Spices: 20% casualty of unsteadfast closures
Leatherman and flashlight: casualty of RDU security and hastiness

Posted 7:13 AM by Walker

Wednesday, June 11, I will fly to London. I will have no apartment to come back to. No career, no job, no school, no academic credentials, no wife, no girlfriend, no roommate. I leave behind my friends, my books, my quiet apartment next to the all night grocery store, late night coffee shop, and neighborhood rose garden, art walks, parties, the cranky old lady across the driveway. Only my books, laptop, and car wait for me. I may never return to see them.