every fucking Tankstelle looks the same

Yesterday morning Jimmy and I returned to Berlin on an overnight train from Brussels at the end of an epic hitchhiking tour of Germany, France and Belgium. In 4 hours I fly to Edinburgh. At this point I would usually be checking and re-checking my luggage, tickets and passports in a paranoid frenzy. But right now I want to document last week's adventure before I forget all of it's farcical twists and turns.

It starts early last Sunday morning. About 4.30. Annika, Jimmy and I are dancing in the street to Geri Halliwell's cover of 'It's Raining Men.' It's the last night we'll have with Annika before she moves back to Finland. Our core posse, not to mention mad bike gang, Die Farrad Schlampen, is disolving. Jimmy and I have been discussing hitching to L'Alpe-D'Huez and then to Paris to watch the last mountain stage then the finish of Le Tour de France. We decide to meet for brunch in a few hours to make plans and leave the next day.

A few hours later I'm on my way out the door when I realise I don't have my wallet. It doesn't take long to work out I must've lost it in the club. So I'm going travelling for a week with no cash and no cards. I spend hours on the phone to Australia cancelling my cards and trying unsuccessfully to get an emergency cash advance. Exhausted and broke I decide to go and meet Jimmy and Annika anyway. I'm on my bike, a block away from the Hans Wurst, day dreaming about coffee and amazing vegan brunch when a car door opens right out in front of me. I'd seen the taxi stopped in the middle of the road next to the bike lane and had slowed down accordly so not much damage was done. I didn't even come off the bike. Just flew forwards onto the handlebars – shocked and winded. (I have some amazing bruises on my upper thighs now – photos to follow). A young couple got out of the back of the taxi. It was probably about 1pm and they must've been on their way home. They were so wasted, all they could do was hug me and offer me cigarettes. They left without paying the taxi fare and walked me the last block to the cafe.

Next morning we're on the road. Took a regional train out of Berlin to our first hitchhiking spot, a Tankstelle in Michendorf. Met Gaia, a Canadian girl hitchhiking with two Polish friends. Apparently they had all spent the night before in a forest outside Berlin with only half a poncho between them for warmth! Jimmy and I had just started walking towards the exit when the first car that passed picked us up. The first leg of our journey took us via Schweinfurt (or "pig river-crossing") where, according to our driver, ball bearings were invented! Our second lift was equally quick and by the middle of the afternoon we'd been dropped at a Tankstelle in the wilds of Bayern. According to Lonely Planet, the Bavarians are said to be “...warm and hospitable, but also fiercely independent and conservative.” So you can probably imagine how a couple of scruffy looking hitchhikers were received, especially after we had been waiting almost three hours in the rain and it was approaching dusk. The only people who talked to us were the cops that came to search our bags and Roman, a 40 year-old Czech truck driver and his 17 year-old girlfriend Teresa. I'd usually be pretty wary of the dynamics of a relationship with an age difference like that but Teresa and Roman seemed like a pretty perfect match. He had a couple of ex-wives and an 18 year-old daughter but he and Teresa played like a couple of kids. And somehow it was just totally innocent - nothing dodgy about it – they were totally in love and totally cute. They gave us coffee, cigarettes, beer and home made Turkish wine and suggested we sleep in their truck until 5am when he could drive us to the next town. So we spent the evening drinking, smoking and playing with their pet rat that slept in the truck cabin with us. Roman spoke no English and a few words of German. Teresa had perfected a couple of important English phrases; “Micky Mouse, I love you, Fuck you very much!” On our way home Jimmy and I conferred that this night had been the highlight of our trip.

The next day was slow – a long time waiting for three short rides that took us to Karlsruhe. Jimmy had a friend in Offenburg, not far from the French border. There was no way we were going to make it to L'Alpe-D'Huez for the mountain stage the next day, so we caught a train and spent the next two nights with the lovely Rapheala. Offenburg is a University town and the day we arrived was the last day of exams for the semester. Our host and her friends had been drinking since 10.30am and continued until about 5am. Impressive trashbaggery even by my high standards. We drank a bottle of cheap white rum, danced to the Cat Empire (Rapheala had spent a year in Australia...and again I'm giddy with nostalgia) and learned some German drinking games.

The next morning we got a lift to the border with a local stoner kid who said he would've liked to take us all the way to Strassburg but didn't want to deal with border control because he had his stash in the car. Fair enough. So we walked across the border feeling accomplished. Hitchhiking in France seemed a lot easier and a couple of long rides with truck drivers got us to the Paris suburbs by the end of the day. As it was already dark and we couldn't find a Metro stop, we camped in a field next to the freeway before getting a lift into Paris the next morning, accompanied by a guided tour of the city – L'arc de Triumph, Le Tour Eiffel, Le Louvre.

Paris was as I expected - breath-taking, idylic, picturesque, expensive and bouergie. I did not expect however, that it would stink of stale piss. Our host was a sweet, sociable, nerd who lived in a nice little apartment in Bastille with an impressive collection of graphic novels. We spent the weekend aimlessly exploring central Paris on foot - stopping only to eat fat crepes and ice-cream and perve on fantastically plastic Parisians. There aren't enough words in my vocabulary to accurately describe Paris. Also, the city's appeal was largely scopophillic, so I'll try with images...

By Monday I was anxious to get back to Berlin, worried I would miss my flight to Edinburgh. After no less than four hours waiting at a service station on the outskirts of Paris with the sun beating on concrete and stirring up that now familiar smell of urine, I wondered if it was my over-eagerness that had put a pox on our journey. Now, this probably violates the hitchhiking code of ethics, but out of desperation we decided to take a taxi to the next toll point, which was apparently only a 30 minute walk but would involve risking arrest for walking directly on the freeway (and I'd already been picked up by Bavarian cops for this offence once before). After 15 minutes or so, watching the fare metre climb above 20 euro we asked the driver to let us out and the next petrol station. By evening we somehow made it to Leuven, Belgium - the birth place of Stella Artois and the home of it's brewery. We sunk a few well-earned cans and I enquired about busses and trains back to Berlin. With 15 minutes to spare we found an overnight but that would take us, via Brussels, back to Berlin by 9am the next morning.

So here I am with just enough time for a shit, a shave and a shower and I'm off to Edinburgh!

mai 1

an old photo from der erste mai in berlin

re-starting?

Sometime in the last few weeks, I reached the mid point in my trip and became almost compulsively reflective. Like every little detail of my day to day life demanded writing home about. For example, the fact the you can buy 'dick milch' (a kind of thin, runny cream, or 'thick milk') in the supermarket just had to be shared with all the vile and juvenile friends I left at home. This is as suprising to me as it must be to you, given that in 4 months the only communication I've had with home has been via banal facebook status updates (“amy isst vegane curry wurst,” “amy raucht zu viel gras”) a few photos early on and more commonly, “I love you, I miss you but I'm never coming back” emails, text messages and phonecalls.

Spending a lot of time with Alicia in the past two months definitely fed this nostalgia for home and made the memory of Melbourne burn brighter in my heart. Recently I've even found myself listening to Architecture in Helsinki by choice. I guess it only takes a few months away to be overcome by the kind of sickening patriotism that has you in tears over the kind of twee indie pop that would usually have you reaching for a bucket (sorry AiH fans!).

Last Wednesday was bittersweet – saying goodbye at the airport to one old friend and one new one, both headed for Australia in the space of an hour. I had totally underestimated how benificial it would be for my mental health to have Alicia in Berlin. People talk about how liberating it is to be in a city where no one knows you. Like you can totally reinvent yourself or finally find your 'true, authentic self' or some hippie shit. I personally found the process of reconstructing my identity and personality for everyone I met boring, draining and in short, a total drag. I was sick of the sound of my own voice, telling the same stories in answer to the old question, “Where are you from and what are you doing here?” I know I sound completely bitter and cynical but what I'm trying to emphasise is this: In a place that's otherwise totally unfamiliar, having someone around who knows your history along with all your insecurities and mild neurosies, who's seen you in the morning in your oldest undies and Frenzal Rhomb hoodie, who's smelled your farts and sat around with you all day in the lounge room that you share - coming down, eating soy dogs and watching the Mighty Boosh on youtube, can be your saviour. Sitting in my kitchen, drinking tea and catching up on gossip with Alicia was the first time in the two months I'd been in Berlin that I actually felt grounded and...I dunno...human. There I go – from jaded old cynic to fluffy hippy in the space of a paragraph.

The same has to be said for the dear Jimmy Cliff who, happily, has not left Berlin. It was also pretty affirming that these two friends from home got along so well with my lovely new friends here. I remember reflecting when we were all fuck-eyed at KitKat club how pleased I was with my ability to seek out and befriend all the rudest nerds on every continent!

Alicia's last week in Berlin was pretty amazingly trashy, culminating in her last Saturday night here dancing to Ramstein in a goth club with a stoner lesbian vampire we'd met earlier in the evening. It also brought about a lot of reminiscing about home. At the airport I wished I was also getting on a plane. Not to Melbourne. Not yet. But somewhere. I hoped that traveling back into Berlin on the TXL bus I would see the city like I'd just got off the plane. Like somehow just visiting the airport would be like hitting 'restart' on my trip. Instead I came home to find it all comfortingly familiar. Of course. What did I expect? You can't just erase all your experiences of a place and start again. It was a pleasant realisation. But I'm worried that this and my reflective mood might be indicative of my complacency towards actually DOING stuff here. So next week I'm on the move again – hitchhiking to France with Jimmy to see the final stages of Le Tour. Then to Edinburgh for Fringe and to see the the Sisters and their entourage.

I'm curious to see how long this contemplative mood will last. I'm not promising anything. This might be my first and only blog post. But for now, subscribe and enjoy. Thanks for reading.