Hitchhiking is by now the normality for my and my everyday life. It takes some time to get used to this change and the changes in my behavior and norms it have brought with it. Of course everybody tells lie once in a while, but for my it is usually a necessity to create some kind of safety net. Apart from
the possibility of being a new person every time I get into a new car with
lies about occupation etc. I also have a very set couple of lies that I tell to
protect myself. As
previously mentioned I have had a wedding ring on for a couple of months. It
really helps fighting of most guys. Ok a great many people don’t really care
about that sort of thing (loyalty) but still I give an impression of strictly of limits
and not interest in any kind of hanky-panky. Also I
usually say that I am visiting friends wherever I am headed, which is only a
very small lie as CouchSurfing is kind of visiting friends one haven’t met yet.
Then people know that I am expected somewhere and will be missed fairly quick
if they by crazy chance know the local human traffickers or have build their
own secret basement under their tumbledown house. Sometimes I try to explain
what CouchSurfing is but very rarely. The
duration of my travels are seldom close to the five months that I have actually
been on the road. Usually it is closer to a few weeks and the same amount left
before going back home to my husband/boyfriend. I try not to make too big lies,
so they are not to difficult to remember and they can’t offend to much.
On a more cheery note I have a funny story from Poland, onmy way home for christmas breakin Denmark: Two really cool and very buff guys picks me up, play
appropriately loud music in the genres dance, techno and polish rap and
generally acting like cool kids. Somewhere halfway the car starts stinking BAD,
really really bad! The one guy immediately starts laughing and pointing to the
driver. The driver of course responds by pointing back, but definitely loses
the polish teasing, because his face went completely red and avoided eye
contact with me for a long time after. I wish I had I picture of this guy
because no description can do him or his shame right:)
The last
month or so I have been halfway bored put of my mind staying first two weeks in
Githio, Greece and three weeks in Agios Nikolaus. Both places “working” through
www.helpx.net,
I worked respectively two hours a day in an animal shelter and a few days
picking olives and other miscellaneous work. The first place made me crazy
mostly because of the social limits and the “religious” hippies. Yes, hippies
bother me at times! Something that really provokes me is people with a religious believe
in their way of living, or anything else, as the only good one. And many people
calling themselves hippies are very narrow minded when it comes to good, bad
and the best way of living, despite the obvious contradiction in this. The
second placed I mainly had itchy feet after staying in only two places for so
long (ended up staying for five weeks in Greece), but also waking up every
morning to a very depressing vegan Polish couple. They were very sweet and very
harmless, but damn they depressed me. They both looked like coming straight
from the gulags or a kz-camp; skinny, pale, eyes filled with sadness and a very
pessimistic approach to life. And of course the religious belief that veganism
is the only true way. And it was the sad veganism with grey and brownish food
90% of the time. No colours allowed - no fun! Furthermore I had a clash with
the male part of the couple over something as stupid as… HUMMUS! Yes apparently
grown people can get pissed off and slam doors because of hummus. To tell my
side of the story short: I had taken some liberties regarding the hummus they
made, by suggesting taking it with us to the lands for lunch and maybe also
eating from the wrong bowl of hummus for dinner the previous day. Big mistake
that I will never repeat J It got even more fun later same day when
Erhard, our host, returned from a delicious lamp chop dinner in a near village
and found a note on some food in the kitchen saying keep of or die in nicer
words. The stupid part is that the Polish couple lived in a separate guesthouse
with their own kitchen and everything, so anything they would like to keep to
themselves could just have been stored there. I know that they did that with a
lot of food most of the time, as they would raid the kitchen and then buy their
own stuff leaving me with nothing. In the end I just had to escape. I felt like
running away everyday, but didn’t want to abandon my host just before we
actually had to do the olive harvest.
