Together with Emmanuel, I decided to leave the city and go for some nature. A friend told us about this village called Bugarach in the Corbières, the pre-Pyrenees. Some kind of rainbow people where supposed to hang out there, so we wanted to go and see ourselves.

I didn't have a clue what's going to expect me up there, but checking google only made me more curious about going there. Almost as soon as we left the highway, we started to hear those rumours with our proper ears: The end of the world is not going to take place in 2012 - NO - but on April 18th, 2011, the day we arrived. The magical Pic de Bugarach though, is supposed to be inhabiteded by extraterrestials, that would come and save their believers.

It was full moon at that date, that's why people were supposed to be gathering around that place. The closer we got, the more evidence we encountered. Huge colourful hippi busses, people that live in the woods, foreigners having moved here for "the energy of the place". We got excited about what's going to happen tonight. Will the aliens come to catch us? Will we survive the end of the world?

The truth is, we didn't find anything but a lonely frog. Well, not even this, as we only heared it, but didn't manage to catch it. The people living in Bugarach did "not know anything", and "never heard about those things before". Well.

After a rather cold night at the lakeside, we still wanted to try finding out more, and therefore headed to Cubières, where supposedly some people installed a Tipi village. Arriving there, we saw a guy walking along a road with his huge backpack and guitar. That must be a sign! So, Emmanuel started running after him, and it was. Charlie was on his way to the Yurt village, where he was going to wwoof for a while. We joined him, and were nicely welcomed by Louise and Maude. A bunch of people started a kind of permaculture eco-village there, living in Yurts. Very interesting, no aliens though :) They would have been happy to welcome us, but as they didn't make their planning for that many people, their food resources were scarce, and so we were going on....

On to... Carcassonne!!! As I used to play that game extensively for a while some years back, I was really curious to see the place in reality. And it exceeded all expectations. I'm not easily impressed, especially not by so-called "sights", but the Cité de Carcassonne was - I daresay - one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. Maybe it was just because I felt like running around in a board game, but it was really cool.

Well, as we didn't have a place for the night yet, and Emmanuel didn't want to squat an abandonned building in the center, I decided to head to Toulouse before the night would fall. No deeper explorations of the walls and towers thus, but still..... I'm so glad I went there!

The hitchhiking race was only the start of a suite of wunderful fun days. In Lyon, staying with Julien, Elsy and Laurent in Casa Bonitawas a good choice. Not being treated like a guest but rather as a member of the house and already knowing the city eventually allowed me to relax a bit, just doing nothing without feeling like I had to acutally do something.

I found out that Mardy, a girl I met at the hitchhikers' gathering in Macedonia last summer, was in Lyon at the time, so I contacted her in order to meet up. She invited me to come over to her place, a squat in Villeurbanne, for a Sunday lunch. What a big surprise when discoverint that Elsy and Julien where going there as well!
So we passed a beautiful afternoon in their courtyard, enjoying delicious thai curry, before hanging out at river banks of the Rhone, playing some amazingly funny games involving various animal sounds.

It was that very day, I decided that I had to stay until at least Thursday, since Julien was organising a Loup-Garou night on Wednesday. The following days go by calmly, hanging out in town or at home, cooking, eating, chatting. One day, we decided to go on a little hitch-daytrip to eventually visit Chatte, one of the places nobody made it to during the hitchhiking race. It turned out to be a really nice tour around some pleasant areas of the departement Isère.

After 5 days in Lyon, I finally made it to Montpellier on Thursday. I am supposed to meet Marie, the girl I was hitchhiking with during the race, but as she was late, I went to see Miguel, who's just living next to her place. He welcomed me with a bottle of wine and some chocolate. Marie joined us later, followed by another bottle of wine and some cheese. What else could you ask for?!

At Marie's place, again, I felt like being her flatmate rather than like a guest. Just like home. Anyway, the main reason for going to Montpellier was a cardboard boat race taking place at a nearby lake. Yes, exactly. Several teams were building boats made of cardboard, (almost) nothing else. It was great fun, and I'm sorry to say that I don't have any pictures of it.

Andrei, the organizer of that event (as well as of the HH race btw), is pretty active in finding new challenges. Therefore, I had the chance to join another great event the following day - a pancake contest. Well, there could be a worse way to start a sunny Sunday than being fed various kinds of pancakes from all over the world (i.e. Breton, German, Maroccain, Canadien, Algerian). And the day continued in the same perfect manner.... There, at Andrei's and Pauline's place, I met Kaja, a German girl travelling with her bike, and she was about to cycle to the beach. Lucky me, her friend had a spare bike, so off we went, to the beach and INTO the mediterranean!

As mentioned before, I decided in Marseille to participate in the
Funny Village Race #2 : Le concours d'autostop d'Evian, a hitchhiking race, more than 600 km across the alps, passing by wonderfully named villages.

About 30 people (15 teams) took part in this crazy but fun adventure. I hitched with Marie, a french girl living in Montpellier. And what else could I say than: We were awesome! First mistaking some directions, as we were basically hitching without a map, and being doubled by some of our most serious competitors, we eventually arrived in Lyon not as the first team, but the one who passed the most, and the most far away villages. As the only team, we reached as far as Puteville and Susville, even finding Montcul. But see yourself:



Unfortunately, we missed out Chatte (Pussy). Going to catch up with this on Wednesday :)

A while has passed since my last post. A lot happened since then. More places, more people, more adventures. Here a short summary of all that...

- One week in Marseille, first summer days, hanging out in T-shirts, learning how to juggle and do it on the streets, earning awesome € 3,22 doing so. Hanging out and doing nothing except listening to minimal piano music with first host Dionysis. Getting drunk and talk about life with his flatmate Antione. Few awesome dinners with second hosts Guillaume and Malina. Decided to participate in a hitchhiking race across the alps together.

- 4 wonderful days with Sylvain and his 6 flatmates, living in a big house with garden in the city of Grenoble. They are kind of a circus. More juggling lessons. More awesome food. Finding 25kg of organic buckwheat in a dumpster and a garbage bag full of fresh bread in front of a boulangerie.

- First indications of exhaustion while spending two days in Annecy. Not doing much there. Improving of glanage skills at the local market. First time saying no to wine & beer.

- Farther up north to Evian, where the funny/crazy hitchhiking race is about to start. Still tired, but not much to do anyway except for looking for a place to buy breakfast at 12:00.

- Added a box for interesting stuff/websites/links/information and whatsoever at the right side. Things I encounter during my trip.

- Arrived in Lyon. Here I am now.

This song has become the soundtrack of my trip. It seems to follow me whereever I go. The last time, it turned up in the following:

this story is not complete.... this story is just a fraction....

My host Dionysis has just the right name for what happened the night I arrived in Marseille.

I got company.

We might get arrested for what we are going to do tomorrow.

I have a tight schedule for the last few days:
- juggling lessons
- ukulele lessons
- hiking up to Notre dame de la garde and up and down the Calanques (awesome btw)

And a lot of other things to do like hunting for a Kazoo.

We are going to be a juggling gypsy band. At the moment we are rather a ridiculous freak show with a broken guitar.

We are going to participate in a crazy hitch-hiking race across the alps.

We are going to Grenoble, Annecy and Evian-les-bains.

this story is not complete.... this story is just a fraction....

I am going to Marseille. A one hour journey by tram, bus, and foot takes me to a gas station directly on the highway. The first person I ask offers me a ride. Leonardo sounds Italian, but he is Croatian living and working in Germany. He offered me some chocolate and started telling me about his own hitch-hiking experiences.
When he was "young", he was travelling through South Africa without money. Now his motorbike is his passion, and he tries to limit his yearly working time to six months in order to travel around for the rest of the year. His upcoming plans are a bit more challenging though: A 9-months bike-trip through South and Central America.

One hour in his truck passes by fast, then he drops me off at a huge gas station with the biggest truck parking place I've ever seen. Well, I might be exaggerating, but there have been quite a few trucks. So I walk alongside them, showing my Marseille sign. A Czech trucker turns out to be going exactly my direction, more precisely to Brignoles, within a stone's throw from Marseille.

Frantisek immediately impresses me with his language skills. Being native Czech, he also speaks Slovak, Polish, Romanian and Hungarian fluently, and Turkish on a communicative level. In addition, he has some basic knowledge of every language you can imagine. He spent a good part of his life driving to countries like Syria, Iraq or Yemen, in order to provide KFOR soldiers with some essential things to survive. Like Czech beer. Once he's retired, Fran is dreaming of a life in Greece, living in a cave with a veggie garden around.

We move rather slowly, and after 9 hours of driving, chatting (in Czech!!), and enjoying some wonderful baguette with cheese and chocolate milk, Fran stops for his 10-hour night break. He offers me to stay on his second bed, and continue to Marseille together the next day. I'm grateful, but I want to reach my new destination by the end of the day, and so I keep going.

I approach a couple standing outside the gas station drinking some coffee. It is eight o'clock now, meaning I left my host's place in Strasbourg exactly 12 hours ago.
- "Non, on ne va pas vers Marseille"
- "Merci", I say, and go off to have a pee. Coming back outside, the couple awaits me.
- "Si, on y va, on y va."
Which has been clear to me from the beginning, since ALL the cars stopping here go towards Marseille. The unassertive lady then turns out to be a really nice person, interested in me and my trip. However, they drop me off only 40 km later, as they have to leave the highway for Valence, where they live.

So I get off the car, finding a young man standing there, smoking. One question and off we go. Nicholas, a good looking but not very talkative guy from Toulon, is on his way back home from Lyon, where he wanted to see a Jamiroquai concert. Unfortunately, it didn't happen, as some roadie had a lethal accident while building the set. More than 600 kilometers, 5 hours of driving and almost 50 Euros street charge just to have the pleasure of giving me a ride.

Not going through Marseille's center, Nicholas drops me off some 40 km outside of the city. Again, I get a ride with the first person I ask. Being the father of a 27 year old daughter, the driver of a fat Audi seems to want to protect me from all of the dangers waiting for me out on the road rather than just help a hitchhiker, but that's just fine. He warns me of going to Marseille's city center after nightfall and drops me off right at my upcoming hosts doorstep.

A day of hitch-hiking draws to a close. At least that's what I'm thinking at this moment...

Permettez-vous que je vous casse le pieds?

Here I am, in France, where the trees already turned into bloom and the cigarette vending machines turned into condom vending machines. It's spring, and you can not only see, but also smell and feel it. And not only the beautiful flowers and blossoms shining in yellow, white, pink, and purple that make my heart smile, also the people here are colourful. Strasbourg is a cosmopolitan city. Walking through the Esplanade you can see, hear and read it.


It's spring in Strasbourg!


Having reached the Parc de l'Orangerie, the vernal feeling continues when looking at all the people sitting around in the already greenish grass, having picnics, making sports. Trees in full blow remind me of Japan, where we were headed to exactly a year ago... Yeah, I guess it's spring!!

And even sightseeing is nice when it's spring....


Springish European Parliament


I was hungry, and I found that.....

On my way back home, I went to a supermarket and was reminded of how amazingly cheap cheese was in France. I guess I'm gonna feed on bread, wine and cheese for the lenght of my stay here, and discover a new kind of the latter every day :)