benn:org

We are in Banja Luka / Bosnia now. People are amazingly friendly! Hitchhiking is very easy, but we took a bus from near Bihac/Bosnia because it was raining all day. Our clothes are soaked, so now we’re off south to the Bosnian coast to get some sun again and dry our clothes. Seppel’s cyrillic skills are getting better and better. 🙂

This morning Petra, her friend, her dog [photo], Seppel and me went to Premantura in the Kamenjak region at the tip (“Spitz” as they say here) of the Istrian peninsula. Petra’s friend works as the handyman of a small hippy-style open-air beach restaurant called “Safari Bar”, so this was our base for the day. The bar area is a collection of handmade tables and small huts hidden in high grass, bushes and flowers [photo]. It’s a fantastic place and it takes a while to explore all the small paths and corners of the bar. They also have toys like a carousel [photo], swings, a slide and a hamster wheel for humans.. We spent the day climbing around the rocky coast [photo], swimming in the crystal-clear sea [photo], sunbathing and resting in shade of the remote areas of the Safari Bar. We all got pretty sunburned and stuffed our faces at the dinner back in Petra’s place. Tomorrow we will be off for another week travelling through the region.

We arrived to Pula! It’s boiling hot and I couldn’t spot a single cloud all day. We went straight to the Rojc barracks where I lived for nearly two months at the beginning of the year. We left our bags and had a little stroll around town and to the coast. So much more is happening in the streets at this time of the year.. Tourists everywhere and people sitting in cafes, in parks and around the monuments, kids showing off on their scooters. We met Petra on the street. She is the woman that did my fancy pocket belt, maybe someone has seen me wearing it before. 😉 She invited us to her place, we had some tea, made plans for a trip to the countryside and she shortened the belt a little. Now we are back in Rojc and I said hello to all the dudes and duderinas. OK, here is a little wrap-up of how we got here:

From Prague to Wels near Linz, Austria (2004-06-05): At around noon we went to a busy hitchhiker’s spot south of Prague. People coming and being picked up all the time. In finest car chase style a young trumpet player drove us the first 30 km to the main road towards Austria. After a little while a steam engine enthusiast took us three villages further. He well used the time to promote the sights of his home: “Boys, I recommend you to visit ..”, “Boys, you should really look at ..”. At a bus stop in the middle of nowhere a junior architect picked us up and drove all the way to Ceske Budovice, 20 km from the Austrian border. We stopped, had another Knedliki meal and went on in lashing rain – yuck. Under a pedestrian bridge we found shelter and a few minutes later a fallen DJ equipment dealer now growing weed for living brought us to his boring hometown 10 km from the border in his 30 year old Lada. We got off at a petrol station with little to no traffic. After the rain stopped we walked some kilometres along the road towards the border and were picked up by an older Austrian man that just returned from a small shopping tour. With his glazzy eyes he looked at us and muttered something about German citizens being allowed to take 10 packs of cigarettes over the border. We stopped at the duty free, bought 20 packs and went over the border passing waving working girls standing beside the road. He offered us a beer and had one himself while driving. 20 km after the border we got off and were immediately picked up by the only Georgian translator in Austria. 😉 He looked more like a DJ or something though. He was so kind to make an extra trip of 50 km to bring us directly to Wels “because it’s raining and getting dark”. At a petrol station Seppel’s sister picked us up and brought us to her place where we stayed for the night.

From Wels to Rijeka, Croatia (2004-06-06): We had a nice breakfast and before noon we stood at the drive-up to the motorway to Salzburg, after 45 min a DJ Bobo look-alike took us to a busy motorway service area some kilometres before Salzburg. Waiting for an hour.. Then a nervous Indian-type guy with searching eyes behind big sun glasses brought us to the next service area near Salzburg. Some minutes later two young guys in a station wagon picked us up. After half an hour of Drum and Bass, Raga and Minimal house from the biggest car bass box that I have seen in my life we were dropped at a petrol station with friendly signs [photo]. We waited for around one and a half hours there, playing Frisbee, making jokes about passing cars. Then we were very lucky, a former Punk-Rock guy now building Irish pubs and selling exclusive rock star watches and sun glasses was on his way to south Croatia. We decided to skip Ljubljana and go with him to Rijeka, one hour from Pula. At the Slovenian-Croatian border though there was some trouble with the watches and glasses that he had in his car and so he was delayed for a longer time. We were a little confused about what was happening, but our driver assured us: “You are free”. So we decided to go on because it was getting dark. The second car, a frenchman working at an oil company in Rijeka, stopped and took us to Icici, a fancy beach town a bit outside Rijeka on the road to Pula. It was dark by now and cars did not stop. We met a group of young people on their way to the pub. We had some beers with them and went to their place a bit up the hill in some kind of student bungalow. We drank Bambus, wine and cola – the local student speciality, and then I don’t remember much.. 😉 Drinking games, swimming in the sea at sunrise, stumbling to someone else’s place, staying there for the night.

From Rijeka to Pula (2004-06-07): In the morning we stepped out of Oz’s cave-like place without windows and unbelievable sun was beating down on us. The view over the Rijeka bay was amazing. We got a free meal at the restaurant where some of the students work that we met the night before. We said goodbye and started hitchhiking again. On the street we met more people from last night. Now the odyssey began.. There is a busy road to Pula and then there is the small, touristy path meandering 80 km along the coast. We walked along the slow road until after 5 hours or so a German couple stopped and brought us some kilometres. Stranded again somewhere in the middle of nowhere we stood an hour until a local bus came by. He gave us a free lift to the next bigger town. When we arrived there it was dark. We walked some kilometres to the bus station. No more busses this night. Some more kilometres in the dark along a narrow serpentine road until we reached a village that had some even ground to sleep on. A little monument gave us some shelter [photo].

From Rijeka to Pula part II / with a vengeance (2004-06-08): In the morning I got up and got some food from the local shop. Some local guy with perfect German gave me a short lift. After our picknick we went on walking in glowing heat. Walking for ages, no car would stop, noone would even look at us. What’s wrong with this road?? We will mark it with a big skull on hitchhiker’s maps. After 4 hours of walking along the narrow and actually quite busy road we stopped a bus to Pula because our feet hurt and our backs were sore from the heavy weight. An unexpected end of our hitchhiking trip, but by the time I’m writing this it’s already forgotten and I’m happy to be in Pula! 🙂

Yesterday we started quite late from Berlin, around 4pm. We tried to get lifts at this way too busy, way too fast, way too many lanes carriage way towards south for way too long time. Eventually a backpacker that just came back from South America picked us up with his rental car. He said something about being sick of travelling by trains and that he is in a hurry, so he rented a car. Good for us, we got ultrafast to Dresden. Just before Dresden we got a lift through the city. Waiting for it Randy and Lutra from Carbusters passed by in a local bus on their way to Berlin. A small hitchhikers world, eh?

Outside Dresden a roadman picked us up with his pick up (haha). Some kilometers towards the border, standing one hour in the dreaded “DW” registration plate place (don’t ask). Playing Frisbee beside the road, across the border with a sports diver from Dresden that was going to get cheaper and better petrol in the Czech Republic. Just after the border, it was getting dark, a worldly wise professor for statistical physics picked us up and speeded towards Prague. He was telling us about his wild hitchhiking youth in 68/69 and the Russian occupation of the Prague spring.

In Prague Roeland and Janneke, two Dutch living in the Czech Republic picked us up at our dropping point and went for a beer with us. 30c for a good beer! Sorry, had to mention this..

We are in Berlin at Jakob’s place. He is a friend of Seppel and ultradigitally equipped. I think it’s going to be the last place with wireless Internet until we reach Pula. Yesterday we only waited 15 min in the sun at the Autobahn in Schwerin before someone picked the two of us up in a tiny car. He brought us all the way to Potsdam where I needed to go for an interview. We’re off to Prague now where we should meet Roeland and Barbara from Carbusters / The Ecotopia Bike Tour / the EYFA winter meeting.

Finally my work here in Schwerin is done and I’m off south again. Seppel and me will hitchhike to Berlin first, then Prague, then somewhere in between and finally Pula/Croatia again. Can’t wait to jump into the Adriatic sea.. Wish us luck!

My web log kept getting longer and longer. Now it only shows the last 10 entries and the older entries can be found in the News Archive. It’s sunny outside today.

Last Thursday some old friends of mine gathered [photo], as every Herrentag (Ascension Day) since ten years or so. We decorated our bicycles with lilac and cruised around the countryside of my home village Pinnow all day and got pretty drunk from the beer that we brought with us in bottles, and we did many silly things as usual. Food was served from the grill that we carried with us in a small trolley [photo]. This is by far the silliest tradition that I’m involved in when home. The next day a friend and me cycled some 60 km towards the Baltic sea to join a small barbecue. The day after we went back the same way. And again we realised how beautiful our home is. At night I joined the traditional Rider’s Ball in Pinnow. Sunday morning I helped putting up and down jumps at the annual horse jumping tournament in Pinnow. I cycled back to Schwerin to play Frisby in the castle’s park. What an active weekend – I still have sore muscles. 😉

On popular demand: My hosting page is up! Have a look if you would like to put your website on my Linux server.

This year’s art movie festival “FilmKunstFest” in Schwerin is over. I enjoyed the films and the parties a lot, sneaked into many movies and I was happy to see how many interesting people from all over Germany it brings to my pretty hometown every year. Four exhilarating days passed by quickly and many of the interesting people are gone again. Some stayed, some will come back more often..