A few days ago I arrived back to Pula/Croatia – once again. Miruna left back towards Belgium yesterday and I found some time to write down what happened the last month. In mid March I started travelling from Romania to Serbia, Croatia, through Slovenia to Italy and back to Croatia. Here is the full report of the trip, it’s a long text, enjoy:
2005-03-15: I left Sighisoara/Romania in the afternoon. I walked out of town town towards Sibiu for 2 km or so. I didn’t even had the time to finish drawing my sign when an older man, on his way to pick up his daughter from the bus in Sibiu, collected me. Like so many other Romanians his daughter works in Italy. He was quite a speedy driver, but the laser and radar detector carefully fitted into a stuffed toy on his rear mirror made him immune to police force. From the centre of Sibiu I walked quite a bit again towards the road to Deva. After a little while a young truck driver, he is studying Economics, took me a bit further towards Timisoara. Driving the old truck of his dad is his passion and pays for his studies. When I got off it was still about 200 km to Timisoara and the sun set down. No reason to worry, a few minutes later another older man driving a truck picked me up. He did not speak any English and he had a pretty sleezy way to comment on women that we passed. After a few hours we finally made it to Timisoara. He wouldn’t let me go without paying some money for the lift. He wasn’t such a nice guy, but at least I made it to my sleeping place that night. I walked to the centre to the INCA social centre / bar place. I was lucky that Aaron, the the American that started the place, just came back.
2005-03-16: Early next morning I bought some food and took a tram to the street towards the Serbian border. I realised that this was the wrong exit of town, so I went to the right one, it took me an hour or so to walk there. Well, that’s what you get from refusing to use maps. 🙂 I was standing next to the wide road leading trough an industrial estate for about 20 minutes when a friendly truck driver with a broken front window and no licence for the truck stopped and took me to the last town before the border. From there I walked on. People stopped and offered to take me to the border for ridiculous amounts of money. Then it happened, I was on a sunny, empty road between two villages. Let’s put it this way: What would you think if suddenly an old Dacia with tinted back windows pulls over, two gangster-type gipsies with dark clothes, missing teeth, scars, tattoos and golden rings jump out, look around to see if there is anyone around and hastily walk towards you.. Yes, exactly, this is it, this what they always warn you of, say goodbye to all your belongings. How silly of me to walk around this unknown patch of land with a big bag filled with all wonders of western civilisation. Passport please, we are from the police – yeah right. Don’t have one – What do you mean, don’t have one, raising his voice. – We have to call the police now – Yes, please, please, the police!, I was thinking to myself. After 20 minutes of me trying to keep the conversation up so they at least wouldn’t beat me up when their friends come, indeed a police van came by. O my god! One can not imagine how happy I was to see the friendly man in the uniform. I pulled out my passport, the gipsies – apparently some freelance spies – were pretty angry with me. I tried to explain to the officer, look at these people, would you give them your passport? I think he understood and everybody left. And there I was, the happiest man in the whole of Romania, joyfully carrying my bag to the next village. Dear Romanian police: What are you thinking, giving gangsters the right to harrass people on your behalf?? Anyway, there it was again, the feeling that the worst thing had already happened to me now and that nothing can scare me any more. The postman took me to the border, charged me a little money. I walked through the empty border area, passed the checkpoints. It seems like the officers have not seen such a happy chap in a long time. 🙂 After a good while someone working near the border took me to the next town. There after a few minutes a young business man took me all the way to Belgrade. He used to be a professional show dancer touring the world, now he is market coordinator for Serbia and Montenegro for a big multinational corporation. Like everyone here he had some stories about the war to tell. Once he saw a big rocket flying by his office window near the Danube, the NATO rocket flew low along the river, pulled up into the air to drop down with all force on the biggest bridge over the Danube to destroy it. He let me out right in the centre. I walked to the art school of my friend Ljubica. I met her on the street, she showed me her studio. Her fellow painters gave me a warm welcome and after some drinks I went to sleep in one of her friends’ place.
2005-03-17: I walked around Belgrade’s lively, warm centre a bit. Only here I noticed how unfriendly Bucharest, my home for the past months, is towards its pedestrians. In Romania’s capital there is not one single real pedestrian shopping zone, apart from the neglected Lipskan area – but also there cars park wildly wherever there is some room. Bucharest shopping and walking happens in “malls” and along the monstrous motorway-like main streets cutting right through the heart of the inner city. Dirt, noise and narrow footpaths stress you. But here I was, sitting on one of the many benches in the sun for a while, and Sone from Bosnia started talking to me. He was very helpful, showed me around the city a bit and we met his Bosnian flatmate for a drink. We met Branko that I know from the old Belgrade squat two years ago and had a little look at the new squat. I went with the Bosnians to their place to cook some dinner and other Bosnians joined for a beer. Late at night we went to the riverside, talking and drinking beer in the cold all night. In an intense interview-like one-to-one talk I learned how a war leaves its marks on the self-confidence of a whole generation – thank you, Borislava. I stayed one more night in the Bosnians’ flat and I will surely visit them in their home town.
2005-03-19: In the morning I started my way to Zagreb by taking the bus out towards west to the motorway tax stations – always a good place to hitchhike from, because the traffic is slowing down and everybody passing is going your direction. Someone told me it’s very close to the last bus stop. It turned out that it was a 5 km walk.. I got picked up while walking on the motorway by very talkative, loud and a little too hyperactive guy in a van of a cigarette distribution company. He dropped me at his exit on the motorway some 50 km later. I waited there about an hour until a Croatian United Nations diplomat working as an Economic consultant in the Kosovo stopped with squeeking tires. We talked about workers owned businesses now and the way it was in former Yugoslavia. He bought me some ice cream on the way and explained to me why the Kosovo war will be known as the first European war over water resources – he has some very interesting views. Also it was interesting to see how the colourful registration plate on his car made police men waves us right through their controls. A good bit into Croatia he dropped me near his home town. After a short while I got a lift by an army special force parachute jumper. He was on his way to visit his brother. I got interviewed about my impressions and the living conditions in Serbia and Croatia, Romania and Germany. Again standing on the motorway a Bosnian guy on his way to Zagreb airport to pick up his uncle stopped for me. He dropped me outside Zagreb near a huge western super-market. Everybody here comes by car and it is those type of people that would never collect a hitchhiker. The next bus stop was hidden in a residential estate nearby. I asked a young person walking by to give me some directions. The poor guy somehow felt obliged to help me, but he could not speak any English, so he called a friend of his to talk to me over the phone and gave me the fare for the bus. At the bus stop another young person talked to bus driver to drop me off in the right place and made sure someone is going to walk me to the right tram stop. How kind. Once I got to the centre I walked to the anarchist book fair that I came to Zagreb for. I met some familiar faces from Belgrade and Pula and went to a party in the Kiseljak squat afterwards. Someone had reserved a place to sleep for me there as the “hacker from Romania”. Uh, how quickly you get new labels.
2005-03-20: In the morning I walked from the squat to the centre and found a wireless Internet hotspot on the way and surfed a little. In the afternoon I prepared a presentation about Free Software for the book fair. Together with Edgar from Monteparadiso in Pula, speaking about Hacklab movement, I gave a short introduction about Free Software and showed an interview by Candida TV with Richard Stallman, founder of GNU Free Software movement. About 100 people attended, this was my biggest audience so far. It felt quite uplifting and gave me motivation for future presentations. I met Barbara from Pula and Ecotopia at the talk. Barbara left and with three other “Ecotopians” I went to a student bar. I joined the party in the squat later and went to sleep quite early.
2005-03-21: I spent the morning around the squat, then walked to the Sava river. I asked a girl for directions and we spent an hour talking. In the evening there was a “welcoming the spring” music bonfire happening on the shores of the Sava river with a nice crowd of interesting Zagreb people and those that came for the book fair. I went to meet my friend Sara from Pula in the city centre. She works part time at a bar and when I went to pick her up I met Alain, a Frenchman that I talked to a different art events in Bucharest, and we had a good chat.
2005-03-22: In the morning I helped to clean the squat from the parties on the weekend a little and then – it was 4pm already – I made my way to the end of town to go to Pula. I walked two hours or so when I realised it was the wrong end once again – I really must enjoy this – walked back one hour and started hitch-hiking from a spot 10 minutes away from the squat as the sun went down – very clever. 😉 A young man picked me up and dropped me half the way to Rijeka. At dusk a friendly truck driver picked me up. He drove at a normal speed most of the way until something got him and he removed a fuse from the electronics box infront of me and then suddenly speeded like crazy. He overtook whole caravans of buses and cars. But he was a good driver and had the situation under full control all the time. He was just having his fun with the empty truck. He dropped me a few kilometres before Rijeka, 150 more kilometres to Pula.. Miraculously at darkness, in an impossible bend, with me standing on the wrong side of the road an old man stopped after only 10 minutes and took me into Rijeka to the best exit towards Pula. I stood there for another 15 minutes when a smaller truck carrying 3 tons of toilet paper took me all the way to Pula. The young driver was funny and a clever guy with long hair and friendly round glasses, but he had these slips when he could not control his laughing any more and was beating the steering wheel. He told me about the strange websites he is visiting regularly and also he was joking about him being a mass murderer a bit too many times for my taste. I was very happy to arrive to Pula and to get out of his truck. I walked through the centre up to the Rojc barracks that have been my home for three months last year. As I came into the Hacklab, Mitsho took me by the hand, showed me my new room, gave me keys for the showers and the kitchen. A nice welcome.
2005-03-23: I had a look around the Rojc building, many things have changed to the good. During the last nine months it became a much nicer place and it is not so trashy any more. But it is still trashy enough to allow young people all sorts of freedoms.. I had a walk around town, went to the sea side, breathed Pula air, looked at the Mediterranean plants and surfed in the Monteparadiso Hacklab in Rojc.
2005-03-24: I am leaving Pula towards Venice at around 9am. I stood about 30 minutes at the roundabout near the bus station – a popular hitchhiking spot – when a young man picked me up and brought me about 30 km north. He had some hip hop attitude on him, Pula respect yo! In the summertime he is cleaning swimming pools at huge villas in the area. After he dropped me off he backwarded hundred metres to pick up two funny looking older women on their way to Rijeka with huge suitcases. I walked on a bit until a man delivering books stopped for me and brought me to Buje, the last town before the Slovenian border. In Buje I had no luck for a few hours so I decided to walk on to the border which is about 7 km away. There I stood another one or two hours, it really wasn’t my best day, until a truck driver with very good English took me through Slovenia, into Italy and 40 km past Trieste to a motorway toll station. I heard hitchhiking in Italy does not work very well, so I was curious. After only 20 minutes of heavy traffic passing through the automatic gates another truck pulled over. The Moldavian driver of the Italian truck did not really speak English, but we communicated quite well with my bits of Romanian and Russian. He was a happy man, he fed me with yoghurt and gave me two big bottles of ice tea. After two hours he dropped me at the mainland part of Venice, it was about 7pm and getting dark. Once again I fell from a star right into a remote residential estate of a city, and people really can not understand what this guy with the enormous bag, not being able to understand their language, is doing at their back garden asking for the city centre. I found out what left and right means in Italian and made my way to the right bus stop and took off over a long bridge to the old Venice island. After some cris-cross walking through the confusing narrow roads and bridges I found the train station. Miruna should arrive here from Belgium soon. Because she went most of the way by car-sharing I didn’t know when exactly she would come in. Sarah, an American girl that came over for her birthday and just “got dumped” by her German boyfriend, joined me and gave me some company for a few hours. I stayed with a group of students from Malaysia at the train station.
2005-03-25: In the morning I read in my e-mails (Internet cafes cost EUR 2.50 per 15 minutes here!!) that Miruna had to stay in Verona and will arrive around noon. We met and spent a wonderful day in Venice.
2005-03-26: In the late afternoon it started raining and we decided to take the train to Bologna. The train was very full so our tickets didn’t even get checked. A bit lost we tried to find a place to stay and ended up in the B&B “Hope”. What a rip-off! A flat in a apartment tower far outside the centre, expensive, improvised, and of course the breakfast is not included. Grr. We shared the dormitory with a prostitute from Romania. The poor young girl lives there with a few bags of stuff. She brought someone home after work late at night and he smoked some nasty stuff in the room.
2005-03-27: In the rain we walked through Bologna’s centre and took the train to Florence. It was a nice journey and Miruna’s friend Christina picked us up from the train station. We stayed at her place about 40 km from Florence. The next day we had a look around sunny Florence and went to a small medieval city near Christina’s place in the evening.
2005-03-29: Christina gave us a lift to Sienna, a town towards Rome. From there we started hitchhiking. A young man stops, but as we get our bags, he just drives off. Hm? We agree that we have spotted another cultural difference here. An older man stops, in a weird style he drives us to some nice costal towns along the way, and invites us to stay at his place and go to Rome with him the next day. We go with him and I help him to drive his scooter from the local mechanic to his house. We can borrow the scooter to drive around the beautiful surroundings a bit. A hill with olive trees gives us a good view and we celebrate the end of the day. Back at his house we are having good wine and some food. At night our host drives us to hot springs in Saturnia 50 km away. It’s actually not only a spring but a small hot river. Steam, noisy water, slippery grounds and the smell of the devil. We try to relax a little and after a while we drive back to his house. This is where he turned a bit funny and says he needs to drive us to a friend’s house. We grab our bags and after half an hour driving on the road towards Rome he drops us at a service area with a small hotel. He said he will be back in an hour, of course he never returned. Let’s say it’s very difficult to decode those Italian people sometimes. 😉 We were sitting on the terrace of the restaurant for some hours, trying to sleep, until someone waves us in and lets us sleep on a couch in a corner near the slot machines. After a while the last gamblers leave and we have a nice sleep. This is about the 10th time on this trip when I really regret that I left my tent in Bucharest. Ah, well..
2005-03-30: We got woken up by the monotonous sound of the cleaning ladies’ noisy machines. After two hours of holding up our sign we get a lift by a yacht skipper who hitchhiked from Peru to the USA in the seventies. He drops us near his port at the toll stations. Two friendly police men guard us on our way off the motorway by driving behind us with their blinky lights going on. Now standing at the toll station leading onto the motorway a stylish young man working with gipsy minorities in Rome picks us up after an hour. He drops us at a metro line and finally we made it to Rome. We are trying to get in contact with Sarah, Miruna’s friend from Belgium, in an Internet/phone place. A helpful man from the Phillipines tries to explain to the Arabic owner of the place in Italian that the Romanian girl and the German boy need to send an SMS to someone with a Belgium phone. In the end he gives us his bag with chocolate and a big Italian easter cake as a present. We meet Sarah, her sister and her uncle in the centre and go to their hostel where Miruna leaves her bag. I go and meet Kry from Candida TV (the circle is closing, eh?) who brings me to Forte Prenestino, the mega-squat in Rome. A friend of Kry who is very involved in the squat gives me a tour around the fortress and introduces me some people. I am having dinner in the squat’s restaurant and go to bed in the guest’s dormitory.
2005-03-31: Forte Prenestino is huge! A low fortress of green hills with something like 70 metres diameter, not including the big trench around the outer dyke. You actually cross a bridge to get into it. No crocodiles though. It has two big yards, long hallways, a huge basement under the whole structure, big stages, tents, a cinema, a two bars, two wireless Internet hotspots, a hacklab, a recording studio and many other things that I have not discovered yet. It exists 20 years and finances itself trough different types fundraising like concerts, the bar/restaurant or the cinema. I think about 10 people live here permanently in houses that have a door in the lower level, a windowless room in the middle level and something like an overgrown Hobbit hole at the top level. Only a few people have the key to the front door, so at times when the fortress is not open to the public small groups of people gather on both sides of the gate until someone with a key comes along. The squat is a quiet green island in busy Rome. I get a lift to the metro and meet the others in the centre.
2005-04-01: Miruna’s friends left Rome and she joins me at Forte Prenestino. We find an uninhabited Hobbit hole and squat it for a few days. Cheap Italian food of divine quality and sightseeing fill our days. We left the Vatikan an hour before “Papa” died. Many pilgrams – some singing, some writing – but almost more journalists were waiting for the inevitable to happen.
2005-04-05: We are leaving Forte Prenestino in the morning and are starting our trip north to Pula. We take the bus to a bus stop at the north-south motorway. Many, many prostitutes are standing along the road in bright sunshine. Every now and then cars stop at them to check prices and quality. Probably that’s why no one dared to stop for more than two hours. Slowly we are losing our patience, but suddenly a popular Italian Shakespeare actor picked us up and brought us all the way to Verona. As we arrive the sun had set and it is getting dark. We tried to get a lift at the toll stations for a while and then looked around for a place to stay in the nearby fields. A farmer kicked us off his land with harsh words of disregard. I tried to explain to him that his sign “Coop Sociale” might be a bit misleading, but as some Romanian words slipped out while I was trying to produce some Italian he finally lost his temper and we left. Behind some bushes next to a small road we built our little nest for the night and fell asleep.
2005-04-06: My sleeping bag was soaking from dew and we were a little stiff from the cold when we walked back to the Verona toll stations over a motorway bridge with high fences. After an hour a French speaking wine supplies person picked us up and brought us to Venice. We waited three hours at the motorway entrance towards Trieste. Many, many cars passed, no one stopped. A friendly man from the road construction team working next to us drove us to the next motorway service area in his lunch break and gave us some fruits. 🙂 We freshened up at the bathrooms, had a little pick nick and started asking for lifts. The first people we asked were two Turkish truck drivers which took us straight away. Miruna went with one truck and me with the other. Turkish trucks are only allowed to go 80 km/h in Italy. After an impressive view over the city and the sea from the high bridges between the sourrounding hills and a drive on highways through the montrous industrial estate near the port with a huge open flame and big steamy, brown constructions of pipes and containers we arrived to Trieste’s centre. It was warm and sunny. After only a few minutes at the entrance to the road south we arrived to Koper in Slovenia with a psychology student in a small car with a strong engine. From Koper we quickly got a lift with a young Croatian, driving his fish delivery van home after work. After he convinced the border police that we are trustworthy people he brought us over the border and down south to a place 30 km before Pula. The small road was not very busy at this time of the day. During the hour that we waited maybe 10 cars came by. An economics student stopped and brought us at light speed right to the steps of the Rojc building in Pula. And this is where we spent the last days together until yesterday afternoon.
The End.