cold, grey berlin

Woke up feeling sick this morning. I guess that is what happens when you stay in a city full of a cold greyness, beer readily available for public consumption at any moment, riding all over the place on public transportation, and scavenging food after anyone and everyone you meet. My throat is sore and I have a headache. Ive had these symptoms many times before and Im sure I will conquer them once again.

I leave today for Mainz. Not a normal tourist destination, but having a friend from college who is a lot of fun, tempts and attracts me to this town. I will most likely stay until Monday and then head to Switzerland to a town of 1000 people to live and work for 10 days helping to build a backstage area for a theatre troupe in exchange for food and board. I am very excited to be in the peaceful mountain village. An escape from the big cities I have encountered thus far.

After the switzerland excursion, I will only have 6 days of my trip left. I will only have used 4 of my 8 possible days of travel with my expensively purchased eurorail pass and I will have not reached near my proposed destinations. I am very much looking into the possibility of extending my trip, however, the reality of an expensive return flight to the states looms. If I could somehow find a cheap flight back at a later date, then I would stay, considering I can already get around europe with the eurorail pass 4 more times for no cost. I am not ready to return, I have no home or job to go back to and have much more to discover in Europe.

9/30 (?) (In vondel park Amsterdam)

The trees sway in the breeze brought by the wind making music with the sun at the core, the back bone, like the drummer of a band, providing the beat for the earth to come alive, breath in the freshness of a new day. On a bicycle. over a book or smoke. while a guitar gets plucked by the happy, rasta man hoping to bring a smile to everyone coming into contact with everyone else that day.

A tree full of age and memories and stories many before me have climbed and all since. A beautiful world indeed, to do whatever you want.

You can never be lost. You end up wherever you belong. No place better than any other.

10/2 (on a train somewhere...heading to berlin perhaps)

In the empty, broken down, yet still standing vending machine full of graffiti at the train station to a new place. In the tiles of the walls in the washroomm on Platform 2. Waking up in the bed of a girl you just met on the internet the previous day. Everywhere you go, everything you do is brand new. Everything you see, touch, feel, hear is forever changing and forever new.

JN