Still, I Don’t Stop to Be AMAZED

Introduction
This collection of words on my thoughts and travels (two things that go hand in hand for me) is from a short in-transit trip I made through Europe in early summer of 2005.
Having just abandoned my plans to study in Nepal after meeting a boy, who was just leaving Nepal to continue his studies in America, I also decided to see what would happen if I went out there with him. And so I left Nepal, flew to Ukraine where I spent a month with family I had not seen in at least 15 years, and then traveled through Europe to London, from where I would fly to America.
Though I was anxious to reach there, I wanted to take the slow route, to get in as many travels and experiences as I could. As it turned out, these were my last travels of this kind for several years.

Border

Tired, but on my way, I see a rainbow above the border, laughing over the patrols and divisions. A rainbow link over two nations, crossing that unsympathetic frontier (with no visa!) I pulled out my camera and snap! to catch the moment (as if you can really).
“Hmmm, should have taken it on manual,” I think as I examine the result.
Suddenly, a border army guard is running straight at me. He pulls the camera from my hands, shouting angrily in Polish. I feel terribly sheepish, in front of everyone, all the good people of the world frowning, who know very well that it isn’t appropriate to take photos at a border, even of pretty rainbows.
I follow the infuriated guard into gray endless offices, everyone looking on.
Since they already had my passport, there was little more they needed from me and they sent me back to the bus to await the outcome of the fiasco. Hours had already dawdled away at the Ukraine-Poland border. We all continue to just sit, crawling with boredom, on the bus.
Finally, our passports are brought in by a guard and distributed.  Still, no camera. The bus engine starts.
“Oh shit!” There was no way I was leaving my camera to the Polish border patrol. I shout to the bus driver, and though he didn’t hear me, other passengers also call out for him to wait.
Just then, at the very last possible moment, the guard who took my camera comes in and lectures me.
I try to be confident, tell him to speak in English. For once, I feel happy to be an “American” because I have a feeling that if I was Ukrainian, he would be able to get away with a lot more. Still, he berates me and tells me that he ought to give me a hundred dollar fine. That’s enough to put terror in my heart.
Alright, thank you. I guess he was feeling kind that day.
Me, I was just glad to have the camera back. I check and see that the image of that culpable rainbow has been deleted.
As I sit back down, I remember a great horoscope my grandmother had gotten done for me several years ago for my birthday. I don’t believe in these things but it was an amazingly accurate one. Among all the other revelations, it kept telling me that I would have trouble with authorities. This incident was just another bump on the long road of border patrols, police, and everyone else who constitutes “authority.” I think back to the last time I was hassled on the Lithuanian-Polish border, on the Polish side, as a friend and I slept on the side of the highway when we could not hitch a ride. Woken up at 3AM, by men in these same uniforms, and guard dogs on top of that, to be told to move on.
OK.
Always moving on.
Getting delirious fatigue and boredom on the long ride, the guy next to me and I strike up a conversation. He’s like me in one way at least, our early life stories: born in Ukraine, grew up in Germany since the age of 6, studied in Florida. Our similarities pretty much end there, though. As always, I kind of wind up having to give a brief synopsis of my life, but maybe from now I will just say I study, something, somewhere.
“I couldn’t travel the way you do,” he says. “Like now after I reach Germany, I know I am going to Spain for 2 weeks holiday until my university starts up again. But I like to know I am going to come home.”
I see his point, and for a moment even wish I lived like normal people of the world. But, quick!, I defend my life as I have to.
He’s not all that bad for a guy to sit next to on a 28 hour bus ride. Out of nowhere, at a rest stop, he comes back with an ice cream for me.
“Ice cream?”
“Uh” (I’m surprised and tempted), “No thanks.” I had been trying to resist indulgences.
“Well, I already got it”
“Oh, well, ok then.”  Gives me an excuse to savor Ukrainian (oh-so-creamy) ice cream for the last time. I enjoy every bit of it, and was really content to see that this complete stranger, in the modern world just as in a traditional place like Nepal, considerate enough to bring me an ice cream. Such a simple thing really, but things like this make me have faith in people. (Not that he wouldn’t go to work for a corporation that is going to destroy all the world, though). At least, it shows me kindness and that people still have decency towards each other.
I don’t need to travel anywhere to see that through. That exists everywhere if you just put yourself out there.

Berlin

I am free. Exhausted from the bus ride- oh how sleeplessness makes everything hazy, unclear- but who cares? I am sitting in a shopping mall, shiny and modern, waiting for my friend Maria to finish her music practice in two hours to come and meet me. I don’t really mind the wait; it gives me time to put my impressions to paper.
Out from behind the Iron Curtain, I feel a difference in the air. I am in “Western” Europe and suddenly that’s exciting. It feels so different than the dreariness of Ukraine and Poland. Although I never ever had any interest in this country, I do like it so far. The people have been friendly.
Ukrainian people are hard to define. They are extremely rude, but at the same time helpful and decent. But there seemed to be so little understanding of life outside the line, subculture, doing something differently. Ahh, here it feels free.
But.
As I sit in this shopping mall, I am reminded that what I love while traveling in the remote places of Asia is the lack of this- fashion, endless shopping and consumerism as religion. I always get shocked by blonde girls, lipped glossed and mini skirted on their way to the movies, well dressed business men on their way to offices, all that shit.
To be honest, it makes me also feel so unglamorous. And sad about the fate of the world, too.
I decide to get out of there and go outside to continue to people watch. The sun is scalding hot, burning from above. I find shaded steps to sit on and smoke a cigarette. It’s great spot, a lot of people walking by…there is the metro station, a park, a little Middle Eastern eatery, and the entrance to that mall. People glance at me once in a while, just sitting there with a backpack, but no one bothers me.
I am happy, lost in thoughts. I look at all the pretty people, families, lone moms with strollers, people of all colors and cultures, people dressed ever so nicely, street folk in their grunge gear and piercings and big dogs setting up their cups on sidewalks.
Interestingly enough, I start to observe all kinds of patterns and things going on in that little square of the world. People making rounds. The men in the eatery conversing.
I notice a scam going on, too. The whole time there were two men, Chinese or Korean would be my guess, suspiciously hanging around that little square. They must have been selling drugs, but the whole operation reminded me of a cartoon, it was so obvious. At one point, a well dressed woman, German, came up to them and appeared to be scolding them and pointing for them to do something. A bit later she came out of the mall and gave them a package. Then one of the guys left and came back with a big package stuffed under his T-shirt, and then went on to pack its contents into his and his partner’s pockets. This amused me for a while, watching their comings and goings and schemes.
Then one girl came and sat on the opposite part of the steps as me. For a second, I thought it was Maria. We hadn’t seen each other in three years, so what if we didn’t recognize each other? I looked at the girl; she seemed to be waiting, too. Our eyes met but she didn’t show any sign of recognition.
“Must not be her,” I think, but without certainty. I decide to go to the spot where we actually agreed to meet, in the open hot sun, she should be coming soon.
I pass the street kids, of which there are many many of in Europe, a huge and visible culture which is present but hardly visible in America. They are sprawled out on the sidewalk like it’s their living room, heavily dressed in their official street kid uniform, pushing a cup at me, asking in German. I smile meekly, but pass them by. Good luck, but begging as the chosen option for getting through life isn’t really the cause I feel like supporting, though I have been there before. I think of people I know in Nepal and how hard they try just to get by and feed their families. It just adds to making me see these kids as obnoxious and ungrateful. Anyway, I’d say Europe treats them so well they have gotten used to people’s acceptance and generosity as they sit drinking in doorways.
I find a new spot on that same side walk, along the wall of the shopping center. There are a few young guys trying to sell newspapers to people walking by. They jump out at them, energetic, pitching their product, and the people laugh or kindly say “no.” I am happy to see people lively and kind to each other. They call out to me in German, joking, trying to pitch the paper, but I shake my head, I don’t need a paper. I feel meek because I don’t speak a word of their language.
Maria arrives. We recognize each other immediately, though we both look different. Big hugs. She’s happy and full of energy, which is just what I love in people. We are so happy we don’t know what to say each other. How do you explain what has happened to us in the past three years?
We walk to her flat.
“Sorry for the smell,” she says, but I don’t notice what she’s talking about. The flat is great in the way European flats tend to be great. Huge windows, high ceilings, beat up artsy Eastern influence interior decorating. Scattered CDs, random photos tacked up onto walls, tapestries, mattresses on the floor, guitars, posters…perfect!
I can’t recreate our gushing conversations. But.
Maria asks me, “So what about this festival you said you’re going to?”
“Yeah, that’s Rainbow. Big hippie gathering, really. People camping out, hanging out.”
“When is it? You said it’s near Erfurt?”
“Yeah, it’s really near to here. Yup, by Erfurt. It’s going on now already and will keep on keeping on for another month or so.”
“So can I come too?”
Whoo! I am thrilled. Rather than me dragging myself alone across autobahns in a country where I don’t speak the language and don’t have a vague map of, not in my mind and not in my hand, I get to travel with my girl Maria…like old times! Like when we ditched our Italian junkie boyfriends spontaneously on the beach in Spain (alight, they were mighty fine guys, but we just got impatient of waiting for them to get their act together) and hitch all the way south, took a ferry cross to Morocco and had wild adventures (the most wild adventures I have had in all my travels) together. The love-hate friendship we had, the feminist sharpened mind she had, the ups, the downs.
“Come! I had been wanting to ask you, but figured you might be busy with work or school so I didn’t even get my hopes up…Maria, us on the road again!”
And so I am already leaving Berlin as I get there. She clears up her music practices, but has a gig soon, so that gives us just a few days for an adventure. We both admit we wish we had total freedom and just set out without knowing where we’d really wind up in the end.
Of all the people I have gotten to know so far, Maria is the most like me, and the most different from me too.
How’s that? I love you Maria for your strength, a feminist girl, she’s head strong, bit with jagged edges. When we met, she was just first picking up the guitar, but with confidence and determination, trying out her music. Unlike everyone else I consider close enough to call a friend- though she did go back to school for a minute, she followed her heart- did not cave into pressure to do what was Right In Life. I am the only other person who continued to be changed by an adventure, who kept going with her own conventions. Everyone else is living a more normal life.
So….I don’t know, what else goes down? Stuff happens in Berlin. Walk around, meet people, see things. First of all, though, we open Maria’s fridge and eat the most satisfying pineapple of my life.
After that there is the Berlin Wall. I take lots of pictures of graffiti and learn there is a beach they made along the wall, which runs at least partly along a river. There are beach chairs and little bars serving beers, city people trying to soak in the sun.
Then there was roaming the city in search of mushrooms. First headshop was closed down a day ago by the tax bureau. We go in a record shop next door to find out why it is closed. The guys working there tells us about the tax agency and then refers us to another one about half an hour away. The guy obviously knows what we’re up to. I am surprised that I like German people….unlike my stereotype, they are really cool, friendly, accepting.
We make it over to the other shop. Hmm, this one is closed too. But there is a sign that says “Be Back Soon.” We sit on the curb to wait. Minutes later, a group of other kids show up, with the same motives as us. They sit down and wait. Maria and I bum a smoke from them. Chit-chat. I just sit and smile. We wait half an hour when a woman passing by stops and gets in a friendly conversation with us. Apparently that sign has been there for hours. But…..there is another headshop we can check for. Buy now we have formed a gang with the others, unified in our struggle for shrumes! We take a long walk to reach the metro station, ride a few trains (which I managed to score a few free rides on), get out and continue walking. We walk and walk…hmmm, no shop in sight. In the end, we can’t find it and give up. Anyway, that neighborhood wasn’t the type you’d find a headshop in.
We wind up drinking wine and eating Thai food. Then we head out, bottle of wine still in hand, to meet up with some friends somewhere. I love the European streets, alley-like, I love strolling and stumbling on the cobblestone, laughing under streetlights, rocked by wine. I am so excited to be in Europe again, brings me back to my first freedoms, when everything still amazed me.
The place we get to is some old palace, but it is a façade only. I am pretty sure no place like that exists in America, nor does any place have the same vibe of it. Inside people are chilling on grass, random stuff everywhere, like an outdoor squat.
We chat with Maria’s friends, from all over the continent. Her boyfriend is there too, but they seemed to have a falling out, she’s pissed, venting her frustrations to me. I try to be sympathetic.
We go by another area, I am pretty jolly by now, wine warming me up. It’s such a mixed crowd of people, two Moroccan guys (only I had no clue they were Moroccan till we started talking and that flowed into a conversation about my time in their country) Spanish songs…which I love, old-time songs I heard by campfires in the past. I over hear a girl behind me say she’s from Minnesota. At that moment, as I myself am heading to Minnesota, it seems completely random. I turn around and ask her about that, but, hmmm, she turn out to be blah. Nevermind, I don’t really want to have anything to do with America at the moment anyway.
Drunk now, Maria and I walk to the club we had originally wanted to go to. To dance. Turns out to be empty, but some familiar, possibly 80’s song, plays and it’s fun for a minute. We are yawning. We start the loooong walk home. It’s Europe and drunken walks through its streets are part of the allure. We reach home and pass out on the mattress.

Movement

Next morning, I am excited. Moving on. That’s always more exciting than staying. The sun shines just right through the windows as I wake up and stroll into the sunny kitchen. I am still pretty thrilled to be there. Maria wakes up, we munch and drink coffee, start getting ready.
We have nothing with us really, few clothes, Maria’s got her guitar, we’ve got our sleeping bags. I love traveling with nothing, and this time round in Europe it feels great having so little. I feel like I can fly.
But that day, things start off slowly though. We stop in the house of Maria’s friends and then search for a bank- she’s got to pay a bill for her university, though she doesn’t attend. It allows her to receive government money, a student stipend or something. Maria comes out from the bank looking grim. She needs to pay $300 before we can leave. It means going to have to go to friends’ and asking to borrow a bit here and bit there until the government money comes in at the end of the month.
So much for a big spontaneous adventure.
I have the money though, in cash, right there. Though I had already sworn to not lend money after bad experiences with mixing friends and loans, it seems like the right thing to do. She says Thank You, You Can Count On Me.
Problem solved, we take the metro to the outskirts of the city to start hitching. It’s already two in the afternoon by the time we start. We decide we better start off at a petrol station, but that didn’t seem to work.
“We have to make a sign,” I decide.
Neither of us have a marker or cardboard.
The cardboard I spot easily enough by the dumpster. A marker is a bit trickier.
“Try that café,” I suggest. They have a chalkboard with specials outside. Surely, they could spare a chip of chalk. Maria comes out empty handed.
“Apparently not.”
“We’re better off at the entrance ramp,” I say. And so we change our location. Lots of people go by in a different direction, but mostly everyone is waving and friendly. Suddenly, we see another guy our age at the same ramp, also hitching a ride. He’s got a sign that says something funny, again I forget it now.
“Ask him what it means,” I tell Maria, since I have to speak through her.
But turns out he’s not German and tell us it none of our business, along with a bunch of other random rude stuff.
“Are you from England?” he mutters to me condescendingly.
“I think he’s tripping,” Maria says. We get away from him and let him do his thing. After a bit, he gives up and leaves.
We catch a ride pretty quick and go pretty far. We get dropped off, and see two other guys hitching right there at the exit of the rest stop.
They are German, so Maria asks where they are going. Nowhere in particular, it seems. They look totally clean cut, typical college boys really, just roaming around for the summer, see where they get to.
I feel a pang of jealously. Me, I have a plan. No random adventures in my future.
I remind myself that I have already done that lots, and this time I have a destination, thousands of miles across the Atlantic even, in a small town in the Midwest where a maybe-love awaits me.
What the hell, its allll life, I think and turn my mind back to trying to get a ride.
We stand across from the adventure boys, just on the other side of the exit. I know its bad etiquette but there was no other decent place to stand. The guys don’t seem to care at all. In fact it hardly seems like they want to catch a ride at all. They are on their trip no matter what.
Maria and I are in good spirits when the police, or I guess the equivalent of highway patrol, pull up. Shit. Is this where things get hard?
Turns out not. They are really friendly. Ask us where we are going.
“Erfurt,” Maria tells him.
“Ohh, that’s not too far. Don’t worry, you’ll catch a ride soon.”
Out of duty, or just needing something to do, they check our IDs, radio them into to headquarters, and come back with a smile and wishing us luck. The only thing is that we can’t technically stand right there at the very exit, we have to go more into the rest stop. We start walking back. They leave, we stop. The other hitchhikers do go to another spot, a really bad one though. They really didn’t want to get a ride I think.
“It’s better to go up to people and ask,” Maria says.
“Ok, you go and ask and I’ll stay here with our bags and hitch.” I mean, I can’t really ask in German. Though, I guess, if I was alone, I would have managed just fine like always.
Hardly any time passes, when a guy stops. He’s happy to give me a ride, but I say in English to him that I have a friend. His car only had room for a person, it was stuffed full. But nonetheless, he said he’s give it a try. I shout to Maria and she jogs back. They discuss it and it’s pretty obvious we won’t fit. The guy does seem to be truly sorry that he can’t help.
A minute later, a girl our age stops and gives a ride a long ways. She and Maria talk for a while. I just zone out and relax. She is friendly and curious about where we’re going. Seems like the two of them have a nice chat about their lives.
She leaves us at the appropriate rests stop. As she stops, another kid with a backpack comes up to the car to see where she is going. Not his way. He’s going to France, on his way from Amsterdam. He looks like a Rainbow kid, so I ask him if he’s coming from or going there. But, no, he’s never heard of it.
Turns out there are a bunch of other people trying to hitch rides at this petrol station. At least two other groups of people hang out with backpacks. In minutes, after we had gotten there, each party had found a ride. Only we were left.
But Maria is working miracles. Talking to everyone as they pump their gas, trying to figure out exactly where we have to go to reach this particular spot in the woods by asking locals their advice. We are in the region already, but with very vague directions.
One man she asks first tells us he is going a different way, but then it turns out that he will give us a ride after all.
It’s him and his son, who’s our age probably. The father lectures us about the danger of hitching. Tells us if he had a daughter he would not let her hitch.
Well, no one ever really let me hitch, I think as he talks. I just never asked, you know?
We stop at a rest area, and I think this is the end of the line for us with this ride. But again he and Maria pull out the map, unfold it over the trunk, and look confused. He can take us further!
After a bit we are driving though pretty countryside, rolling hills, little towns, castles, cobbles stones, flowers, tiny shops. The driver tells us someone famous was born there, but now I forget who.
We make it to the Rainbow gathering. A day later, Maria has to go home to Berlin. She goes. A day or two later, I catch a ride from with a couple to a border town in western Germany. First thing the next morning, I am on the road alone again.

Road

I make a sign for “Calais” on the last free side of the folded cardboard I have been using to get around. This rest stop is huge, modern, alive and thriving…it’s an “Auto Grille.” Ah, the world of roadside life!
Though the sun is really beating down, it gives me energy. Though some people look at me, I like my image of a bum going somewheres.  I don’t want to stop. I find a good spot and wait. Maybe 10 minutes passes and a tan minivan stops. A businessman from Switzerland, selling saddles and horse riding equipment, very chatty. I am feeling lucky, nearly gloating, because he’s my ride all the way to Calais.
Now, after so many rides that day, I just have to sit back and relax in this air-conditioned car. I look out the window, at the rolling hills and distant castles and relax. I am at ease with the driver. His name is Daniel.
“Hey, that’s my brother’s name,” I tell him. He asks all about my family, where they are, what they do. Also he asks why I love Nepal so much, what my dreams are, what I’ve done in life.
He himself is sporty, says he loves life, has a “wife no kids,” has a house in Spain which, he explains in detail, he is trying to sell. If the potential buyer buys Daniel’s house, then Daniel can buy a yacht. That seems his greatest stress now, he really want the deal to go through. He really wants the yacht.
Hmm, I take all this in causally, nodding and “uh-hu”-ing sympathetically. Though I do wonder what its like to worry about selling a mansions and buying a yacht. But by this point I am used to dropping into the lives of all kinds of people, rich and poor, of all cultures, of all nations, of all ideologies. It’s all part of The (lifelong) Trip.  I do wonder thought what the hell he thinks of this tangle haired girl in the seat next to him.
Daniel speaks nearly all the major European languages, prefers the Caribbean to Hawai’i, lets me call my friend Bella in London, which is where I’m headed, so she actually knows that I am coming, coming all this way to see her.
Daniel offers me to stay in his hotel room and then the next day he’ll take me to London, since he is going that way tomorrow morning, he already has the car ferry booked for 9 AM. I don’t say yes because I am not sure I want to. I am always on my guard. And, anyway, I start to think I can reach London today.
Then Bella texts his phone saying “Let’s meet tomorrow” so I decide there is no need to rush to London today. I am tempted by the luck of it all. I had thought I would have to sleep on some roadside, and here is this offer for a place to crash and even a ride all the way to my final destination. I accept his offer casually, “Yeah I guess so.”

Roof

Things didn’t turn out as I had expected. We get to the hotel, check-in. Daniel says I have to show the lady in-check in my passport so she can fill out the forms.
“That won’t be necessary. I already have the Mr.’s” she says.
A shiver down my back. I am suddenly small and meek. Feeling gross to know people think I am the little lady, his Mrs.
I follow Daniel to the room. He’s in good spirits. I’m starving. I have not eaten but an apple and a piece of bread from an Auto-Grill. Daniel is excited about going to a French restaurant and eating fine French food and fine French wine.
Once in the room, he says to me “Let’s see each other’s passport, to make this a fair deal.”
I don’t really know what he means, but assume he wants to check that I am legal, and not lying about my identity, and have my true name in case something from his room goes missing? Ok. We check out each other’s passports.
“Let’s take a shower” he says.
Huh?? Doesn’t he mean showers? I start to feel strange. I start to dig around my back, trying to look busy. He goes in the bathroom and showers with the door open. I continue digging through my bag, trying to figure out if he’s a real creep. In the car we had talked about how dangerous it was for a girl to hitch like I was.
“There are a lot of crazy men out there,” he had said.
In the hotel room, during the passport check, he had said he was a Nice Guy.
Suddenly and quickly, he’s out of the shower, walking around the room in tidy whities. Um.
I run into the shower, eager to wash off all the dirt. I was so scummy from Rainbow, blackened feet and tangled hair. There is no lock on the door and I worry he might come in. He doesn’t. I take a steaming hot shower and evaporate all the dirt.
I am worried. I realize that if all was totally cool, I would not be having these thoughts, this feeling in my gut. But so bad I want him to be just a kind person helping me out, I want to sleep indoors tonight.
I want to clarify with him that he’s just being nice, that I will sleep on the floor, that he doesn’t want something in exchange. I want to be all Ani DiFranco on him- tell him what I really think. But I can’t come up with the strength.
I come out. He’s in the bed, under the covers, a smirk on his face. I walk right to my pack, shove my dirty clothes inside. There’s an awkward silence. I sit on the chair, next to my bag. I look around the hotel room. Hotel rooms are sad, and this one makes me feel even sadder.
Ok, just do it. I stand up. I walk out.
Daniel shouts that it’s my loss, that he would have shown me a good time.
“Fuck you and your good time,” I think, feeling dumb for thinking he was a good guy. I am still scared he might try to do something to me.
I take the elevator down. I run into the bathroom, shivers going down my spine and a gagging feeling in my throat. I look into my eyes in the mirror, disappointed at my mistake. I had always known that trusting strangers could be dangerous, but I also knew that I could read people, their eyes, their intentions. This was my first mistake. Maybe deep down I had that nagging feeling, but I was tempted into ignoring it because I had no other ideas of where I might sleep that night.
I still had no idea. But I was still scared Daniel might show up in the lobby, and ran out fast, away, past the receptionist who was thinking I don’t know what about me.

Night

I get as far as a sandwich shop down the street. My body is shaking with disgust, fear, confusion, and hunger and I need to just sit down. Fill my belly and get my head straight. I eat a baguette with cheese and decide I need to figure out where to sleep that night. It will be dark within a few hours. I am worried because a strong cold wind is blowing over the English Channel.
I pay for my food, feeling like the shop owner can see through me, like he knows I was dumb enough to go into a hotel room with a strange man, like he thinks I am cheap and frivolous. The feeling of disgust is still slimy all over my skin.
I see signs for a campground and try to follow them. For no reason what so ever, a man starts following me. I sit down on a bench in the park, near an ice cream vendor and families until he goes away. I start walking again when another man makes some nasty comments to me and purses his lips in a kiss. I walk past him, eyes looking straight ahead, trying to keep my chin up. I must have my vulnerability written all over my face.
I can’t find the damn campground, though I have been walking around the town for half an hour. I find myself at some seaside fort, where I see a man on a bicycle with a baby. The baby assures me and I ask him for directions, but his eyes are shifty and he guides me to an alley. I can’t understand much of what he says, but it is lewd and I run away. I cannot believe that every man I encounter is like this and vow not to talk to any man until I get out of this place.
I find the campground, which charges more money than I want to spend for a night of bad sleep. I search for the office anyway and fins it closed. As I walk through the campground, I uncomfortable. There is a strange vibe to the place, with many gypsy caravans looking like they live there permanently in poverty.
The wind is getting intense and the campground is right on the edge of the water. I keep walking around, waiting for someone to help me out. No one does. I see two girls- the first two all this time- and ask if I can just have a bit of space of their site to sleep. They say OK and continue packing their car.
I spread out my sleeping bag, climb in to warm up, lean my back on my backpack and start writing down all the thoughts swirling in my head. I am still feeling shaky but now at least I have place to rest.
The girls, from Holland, see my set up.
“Is that all you have?”
I admit that I have no tent, that I am traveling light.
“But there is supposed to be a huge storm tonight, that’s why we are packing everything into our car. We are going to sleep inside it tonight.”
Well, that explains the crazy wind and the chill in the air.
Soon, they are done packing and offer me some wine. Pretty soon we are having a good time and my theories about the world taking care of me are upheld.
I have a great night and sleep peacefully in the cramped backseat of their tiny car. I will never forget those girls, or feel thankful for them.

Ferry

I feel cautious of men even as I sit on the posh ferry to London the next morning – in the bar lounge cause it the only place you can smoke and it’s got comfy couches. I get a great spot right next to the window, but there are 3 guys sitting in a semi-circle around me because that’s how the seats are arranged. When I look up, they look straight at me and creep me out.
I am thinking back now- I was never really a feminist, well not sooo much, and not so suspicious of men as real feminist girls with a chip on their shoulder. But now, at least in this moment, I am.
Traveling would be so much less scary if I did not have this one damn thing that could be taken from me at any time, just by being female. I carry nothing now, old clothes and maybe only valuable is a hundred dollar camera. Nothing too valuable that anyone wants to steal from me that badly or kill me for. But I am and always will be a woman and no matter how poor I am, I have to deal with men wanting something. And I am not a Pretty Girl, so I was surprised by Daniel the day before. I am grungy and chubby and a big mess- that’s just how I want it. So what do they want of me?
Thinking back now, I see how nearly all guys- even friends- wanted this from me, in exchange, though not formally, for a place to stay, sometimes being really pitiful and apologetic for it. Their names and those moments flash though my head now.
There have been some real brothers and gentlemen along the way, and I remember and honor them all in my heart. Thank you, for showing me respect truly.
The world- now I see it!- is a man’s world. Where were all the lone women drivers that day? Were none of the going my way or was it that girls are intimidated to pick up hitchhikers, they don’t make such bold moves?
I never have gotten angry with guys about it, I was cool and understanding of their everlasting horniness, excusing it, laughing it off, being empathetic, comforting….but now, FUCK OFF. This is not going to make me scared or make me do anything different. Only that- Bothers, protect your sisters.

City

Came into London now, but for some reason still weak and shaken. Tired. Life feels difficult (like I wanted) but that’s mostly cause of my mood. A return, a glimpse of this feeling of being completely exhausted with no where to rest but the endless road, no stability of safe haven, of “I’m free, so what?” Of “no one and no one loves me,” of how life is long and there will be pains and losses. But I pull my self together, it just from the exhaustion.
It makes me happy that Shirish is there, in Minnesota, but also apprehensive that it’s not really going to work, how can I ever have that complete trust and connection with someone, I am too cautious now, I know love can be a slippery.
I have hours to kill before Bella is free so I find a library—my long time dream, since I found none in my travels in Asia. But I’m too sleepy to enjoy it, the books not holding my interest. I hope this time with Bell is wonderful, I really tried to come here, I hope we still connect.
It is just like in the movies here. By the time I head out to meet Bella, it is rush hour. Everyone is all business and all busy here, it’s stranger than other places I’ve seen in Europe and even New York.
But I can handle it, I can handle anything.
I emerge from the tube, and crouch on a street corner to smoke and jot down the millions of thoughts crashing through my mind as I wait for a bus, though its cold now and everyone is running past me.
As I was sitting on the metro, I had a clash of worlds in my mind. Blink, rewind: I am in a village in Nepal. Blink, fast forward: I am in a busy London tube downtown during rush hour. Blink, rewind: I am moving slowly, children are running around barefoot and laughing, the air smells of cooking fires and spices. Blink, fast forward: Things are shiny and smooth, people on their way home or out for drinks with their coworkers, suits and newspapers, perfume. I feel privileged seeing the craziness. The world is so varied, but it’s all a big game to me somehow, a story I am living out.
Another random realization: The good thing about Europe- You can smoke in restaurants. About America- Free Toilets! I had to pay nearly a dollar to pee!

Friendship

Sometimes I like to think of people from a distance. They look bluer and greener, like the earth from space. Your mutual experiences with them become legends- the crazy adventures, the unfathomable talks, the connected moments, the once in a lifetime chances, the miraculous events once-unfolded, the thank-god-you-are-here-and-I am-not alone-in-this times.
People start to look so polished in the past. You suddenly miss them. There is always more left to be said than a letter can convey, you are both left wanting more, there are no conflicts through letters, you create grand plans for future roamings, though you know they might never happened as everyone settles or gets involved in work or love or who knows what.
You then know they are bothers and sisters and loves, but from a distance. And, yes, they are, but face to face you are shier, limited somehow, have nothing to say though before letter after letter could not convey it all.