That’s
right, I’m alive. My life has been intense since the last crap I wrote. Met
some wonderful new people that I wanted to take with me. I met someone very
special the last weekend I was in Granada. I am indeed the
King of Bad Timing. I spent more time in my second home (or
first?), oh yeah, that place is
Hamelin. That pub became a very special place
for me. The barmen became my friends, I did some crazy shit there. I slept at
the bar more time than I would like to accept. I would be in a position to deny
that but unfortunately there are a few photos of me sleeping. Since I started traveling
I don’t listen to radio and I don’t what to look for on youtube, I mean new music.
My music library has grown very, very slowly. But despite that fact along the
years I managed to came to know some really great bands. I’m not sure if I knew
them before but in Granada I became a fan of
The Black Keys; and I specially
like one song:
Lonely Boy. I’m not sure who was it that changed the name of the
song to
Lonely Ron but I liked it.
From then on I sang that song, let’s say a lot.
I even managed to get a shot named after me… yup, you guessed it right,
the name of
MY shot is
Lonely
Ron. The last beer I had there, the Sunday before I left was very, very
emotional.
(photos courtesy of Syrmo Kyrstopoulo)
 |
| photo by Cristina |
I needed
to be in Paris fast and given the fact that hitchhiking in Spain is utterly
unpredictable, I decided not to hitchhike whilst still in the country. I found
myself in Bilbao 12 hours after leaving Granada. I had been there before, 4
years prior. In Bilbao I met with my friend Cristina. She spent 5 years in
Australia. I haven’t seen her in the same amount of time. We talked about of
love stories, about traveling, about traveling and love stories. We had a lot
to catch up… a lot! Although, 3 days was not enough to get up to date for the
last 5 years, but we have an idea of what we did in that time. Sometimes some
people tell me “life has taken us different ways, you are traveling the world.
Distance tends to drive people off". Not in this case, I felt like the last
time I saw Cristina was a month ago (a 5 year 30 days ago, if that makes any
sense. It does in my head).
The
route that lorry drivers take from Portugal/Spain to Northern Europe “goes
through” San Sebastián. So there I was, at 6 in the morning looking for a way
out. I decided to share a ride to the first petrol station on French soil. The driver didn't charge me... it ended being sort of hitchhiking. Once
there, 5 minutes later I was inside a Portuguese lorry on my way to Bordeaux. I
think that Granada turned me uglier. I spent 7 hours stuck in that damn petrol
station! Nothing was working. I was asking people near the pumps. No one was
going to Paris. In December I was on the other side of the road, going to
Madrid and I found an straight ride after less than 30 minutes (we had
breakfast in those 30 minutes of waiting). Why on this side was different?
Dafuq should I know! I just knew that no one was picking me up. I was
desperate. I was anxious. I was hungry. I only had one apple, one peach and one
pear in my stomach. Finally, by 17:00, a Belgian car drove me to Paris… super
fast! I was very scared but I didn’t care, I was finally going to Paris, for
the third time.
Paris,
the City of Light. Twice before I had been there and twice before was nothing
special. In fact, I’m not a big fan of Paris but I was supposed to meet someone
there, someone that never came. Therefore, third time was
not the charm. I met some
nice people there so it was alright. I met with my good friend Lempi and everything
was alright.
Leaving
Paris is always a major pain in the ass; this time was not the exception. The
distance between Paris and Lille is not that much so I decided not to start as
early as I normally would. After four hours of sharing the spot with four
other people, I finally left and was having a beer with my friend Chloé by 17:00.
The first thing I noticed when I saw the beers on the table was, where the fuck
is the food? Oh yeah, I was not in Spain anymore. Summer of 2013 I met a nice
Moroccan in Tallinn. A year later I was meeting Abde in Lille for a coffee.
I
was standing in the entrance of the motorway. A place I had been standing twice
before. The first time I was there I was going back to Belgium and I found a
ride straight to BXL. The second time I was going South, I was going to
Saint-Loubès and found a ride to the first petrol station on the motorway. Both
times it took like maybe an hour or two. Both times I was with a girl. This
time though, I was alone. This time it took me I think more than four hours.
Not one single car even stopped to ask me where I was going. I didn’t
remember that hitchhiking in France was that hard. I saw a lorry with Belgian
number plates and immediately showed him the “BXL” sign I had been using.
Suddenly, the unexpected happened: the driver agreed to take me! After
introducing myself and talking for a bit he told me that he was not going to
BXL but to Antwerpen through Gent… Fuck it, I was on my way to Belgium, I
didn’t care. As long as Belgium was still as easy to hitch as it has been in
the past, I could be anywhere and still make it before dinnertime to my
destination. He offered me to take me to Antwerpen (it would’ve been as easy to
go there and hitchhike down to BXL but why bother to add an extra 100ish Km)
but I asked to be dropped off before Gent, right before the crossroads on the
motorway leading to BXL. 10 minutes went by and I was offered a cigar whilst
being driven the petrol station on the motorway. There I asked a few drivers
but they were going not quite to Brussel (by the way, for those of you who do
not know: BXL = Brussel = Brussels). Finding a ride in 10 minutes is super
cool, especially after being stuck for 4 hours in the same place. Belgium is
the country where I had the most rides in luxury cars. I saw a fancy
MercedesBenz S-Class, the driver looked (and was) a businessman. He changed his name to
Dries when he converted to Islam, over 20 years ago. He used to hitchhike and
told me that Spain was once easy to hitchhike and that Guardia Civil had always been assholes. Oh yeah, he told me this while driving me to BXL.
