Belgium to Berlin on a Thumbnail

Waterloo, Belgium to Berlin, Germany -- August 2011

I'd caught the European equivalent of a Craigslist ride from Berlin to Brussels to meet the effervescent Heather Vescent who was in town on business from Los Angeles. She'd just been hired by a large Belgian firm to help predict the future of tech and the economy (yes, that's right, she's a professional Futurist!). It was fun to watch her leave for the day in her sassy tailored suits and purple hair*. After a few days touring Brussels – go see the Atomium when you're there! – it was time to hitchhike back to Berlin.

In delightful contrast to our posh hotel in the suburb of Waterloo**, I hefted my beat-up backpack over my shoulder around check-out time and hoofed it a mile to the highway. Soon I hopped in the car with an elven middle-aged lady on her way to work in Brussels. She listened to Europop with English lyrics on the radio and at a stoplight handed a bag of cookies to an old Turkish beggar woman on the side of the road, as was her daily custom. She took me to the fancy organic food store she worked at and set me up with a care package of granola and trail mix, as well as a reusable black laminated card with an erasable white marker. On it she wrote: “Berlin – Merci! Dank U! Thank You!” and drew a smiley face giving a thumbs up. I used the back side of that card many times on my European hitchhiking journeys. It still travels with me in the trunk of my car, her happy message emblazoned upon it.

It was shift change at her shop, and my second ride was from her co-worker, a sweet gentleman in his late 20s from Côte d'Ivoire. He spoke no English, and I speak very little French, so communication was tricky. Fortunately the international language of reggae pumped through the stereo. This fellow must have driven 20 minutes out of his way to get me to a serviceable service station outside of the city.

The next ride was from a Moroccan chauffeur-by-day, rockstar-by-night. He explained to me a number of times in excited, broken English that his Moroccan reggae-funk band features the guitarist from Blondie, and he invited me to stay with him in Liege if I wanted to come back in September for their next show. We exchanged albums, and when he dropped me off he told me to give him a call if I had trouble catching another ride.

I was stuck at that service station in Liege for a couple of hours, eating a sandwich made from ingredients pilfered from the hotel's buffet and wrapped up in a bag from the room provided for “sanitary reasons." My last ride for the day finally came from a Congolese fellow who taught underprivileged Belgian youth to rap in French. He'd just dropped his Rwandan-Canadian girlfriend off at the airport after her two-month visit and had picked me up on his way to Cologne to take his mind off the fact that he wouldn't see her again until December. 

I'd never been to Cologne, and the weather that day was so nice that I was loathe to spend it wasting away in automobiles. When I said I might spend the night there, the Congolese fellow was nice enough to drop me in the city center. A lot of my rides have gone out of their way for me, and I sincerely appreciated it every time, especially while toting 40+ lbs of gear. Boots back on the ground, I got a bead on a couple of hostels from a hotel concierge. Before I checked in I sat gazing at an ancient cathedral from a pub patio in the old town, soaking up the sunshine over a Kolsch, listening to an Irishman speak German with an Irish accent and a German speak English with an Irish accent, too.

The next day, with a raging hangover, I successfully – if painfully – hitched the remaining 350 miles back to Berlin in twelve hours with five trucks, two cars and one hell of a headache. I holed up in my spartan Kreuzberg room the day after that, listening to the din of Goelitzer Park that wafted through my open window as I recovered.

*The crazy loon then flew into Reno for the last two days of Burning Man. Jet-setters, us.

**Yes, that Waterloo. And yes, I did have Abba stuck in my head for the duration of our stay.

Creepy-Crawly Concerns

Esmerelda outside of Hydrangea

Here on Cherrymont Farm in southern Pennsylvania I'm currently residing in a cabin known as Hydrangea House – named for the flowers that surround it – a wooden structure roughly 10x10 feet built in the early 1900s. There's a loft for sleeping, so the floorspace of the cabin feels pretty roomy. A small round table covered by an patterned Indian cloth sits in front of large windows where I procrastinate from working on the second draft of my novel by looking out at the lush green grass and autumn fireworks. This morning I woke to a lovely romantic mist creating chiaroscuro haze in the treetops visible from the high window of Hydrangea that ventilates the loft.

But it is awfully rustic here, which is saying something after a year on an off-grid homestead in Montana. While I have electricity in the cabin – supplied by a power strip plugged into a heavy-duty extension cord that runs from the main house – the bathroom facilities are in the big house or the outhouse, both a mere 20 second walk away. Last time I was here I didn't recall being quite so entrenched in nature, but that was in the dead of winter, when buggies go dormant. I'm no longer super squeamish about insects and vermin, but I do have a few creepy-crawly concerns.

My workspace. Pity me.

Yesterday there were three hornets inside the cabin. I let them be because I don't like to interact with stinging-things if I don't have to. Especially in a magazine-wielding capacity – if I miss my target, things could get ugly. That was probably not a great idea though, as they were poking around the joint like prospective real estate buyers. One hornet made the mistake of landing in my bed last night though, so I killed it. That's the deal I have with the bugs in Hydrangea – stay away from my bed and I'll most likely leave you alone. Come near my bed and you forfeit your life. I think it's a reasonable request.

The stink bugs are just irritating. I don't remember them ever being this prolific in my southern childhood. They stink differently too, a mix between cheap cologne and musty farts. They're beginning to look for cozy places to spend the winter, which they often believe is my bed – and they'd be right if it weren't for me. Every night before I go to sleep I have to sift through three layers of covers and flick the stinkers away. The other night I had to evict ten from their blanket fort. They're harder to kill because I don't want to squash them in the bedding, so they generally escape with what is essentially a good spanking. Last night I didn't find any, so maybe they're learning.

I'm also certain I have at least one rodent friend in the cabin. Sometimes the scratching around in the ceiling wakes me from a dead sleep at night, and I've found mutilated pieces of tissue on the built-in counter top. As long as I don't die of the Hanta virus, I suppose it'll be okay.

The view from the loft

I don't really mind the spiders – they eat other bugs and tend to keep to themselves. For a while I had an orb weaver (non-poisonous, I looked it up) the size of a 50 cent piece who built her large, luxurious web just off the loft. She freaked me out at first, but the night she moved in there were so many mosquitoes in the cabin that I let her do her thing. I named her Edwina and told her that as long as she stayed away from my bed we could live in harmony. Edwina hung out for a week and then disappeared one day. I was sad to see her go, I'd become quite fond of her company and bug-disposal services.

I believe Edwina's departure marks the beginning of the bug hibernation sequence. So while I'm enjoying this bit of Indian summer, it will be nice when the chilly weather drives all the winged creatures dormant. The mice, well, I might just have to accept them as my cabin companions through the colder months. But it's worth it for the tranquility and regular impromptu dinner parties Cherrymont is famous for.