France, and loads of things happening...

the bike i built in london is going on without major problems :D...all parts from skips

After visiting a bit of wales the biggest and most interesting stop was in bristol, we stayed in The Factory, a recently squatted social center, where the people living there are making amazing construction work to make it liveable and usable... I also visited other projects in the city, an anarchist library, a free shop, a bicycle festival, an infoshop...it's another of those cities where everything is happening :D

Kebele Social Center Welcome boarddouble bicycle car pushing a pedal-powered sound-system trailer

after bristol, the last days in england were nice, we visited a organic farm and then head to Portsmouth to cross by ferry to Le Havre, France.
I was more than 10 days in the Camp Action Climate and too many things happened to be able to describe them here, i will try to do a summary.

We arrived by bike to the site of the camp about 4 hours after being squatted, it was a huge field and in less than two days 4 kitchens, 3 sets of compost toilets, water, showers, 2 circus tents for big events, indymedia tent, legal team tent, medical team tent, a free shop, a welcome tent, an organic local beer bar, a kids hut and some more small-infrastructures.
After the first days of setting up the camp i already knew loads of people and was easy to adapt to the life in camp (teams for cooking, cleaning, organizing, etc...) and joined the medical team workshop (for me as a simultaneous french learning workshop as well :D)

Reclaim the street and blockading MacShit

During the week some action and loads of things happened, i meet amazing people and gained a lot of knowledge on direct action... Velorution (Critical mass) is an amazing way of distracting the police and making action colourful and coherent (oil boycott)... we did it several times, the mac donalds was blocked for some hours with an amazing organic vegan dinner being distribucted in front of it, while reclaiming a part of the main street of Le Havre for clowning, playing and relaxing, Clown Army was a big presence everywhere, there was a blockade of the total (that turned to a blockade - with the help of the police - of the whole Le Havre Port), a supermarket expropriation (self-reduction action) where more than 2000 euros of first-need products were then distribucted in the streets of a poor neighbourhood, and a blockade with lock-ons of a Agro-fuel refinery and a banner drop inside the factory...

blockade of Total refinery

now the biketour is getting bigger, we are 20 cyclists, but probably this will be the last post i write, as i will leave the biketour next monday or tuesday, to go to amsterdam or nantes...

Somewhere in France -> Bologna

I wake up at 7 to meet him, but he was still asleep, i wait till 9 and he was still asleep... then i asked to another truck driver, Cristian, who rode me to italy, to Piacenza... he was really nice, we talked a lot, he was learning (alone) how to program and was really in to computers, linux, c++ and reading... not an usual truck driver and we had lots to talk...

In Piacenza i lost 1 hour, and then meet Joan, a guy from argentina that lives in italy for a long time... we also had lots to talk (from religion, to environment and vegetarianism) and he brought me really inside bologna..

Hitchhiking is really a special kind of adventure as you meet the most unusual, and nice, people :D

Paris -> Somewhere in France

Wake up early to follow Remi's instructions to get out of paris hitchhiking (as he already did it several times).... it's not easy, as paris is really big, and in the place we recommended me there were already two other hitchhikers waiting :D...

After 5 hours, i could finally arrange someone to put me near the highway, and there , after finding another hitchiker, i lost only 20 minutes to get Nico, the guy who took me to a gas station 100 km away, near Nemours.
From there, after not so many time, i found a spanish (crazy) truck driver who ride me some hours to another gas station (in the way he did a joint and before going to sleep he still gave me 2 beers...lol...)

I sleept in this gas station waiting for the morning to get in his truck again, as he had to sleep 8 hours before start again driving...

Vitry-sur-Seine -> Paris

We went to visit the huge fresh food market (distributor) of paris, can't remember the name of it, and there we went to visit an associacion that recycle and recover unused products from the market and distribucts them to other social NGO's in paris...

There we still had time to see all the food waste companies make, we found biological yogurts (still on date, but one was broken in the pack of four) and 2 containers full of mangos (that made a great mango mouse in the night :D)

before dinner, i said goodbye to everyone and went to paris to meet an old traveler friend, Sabrina, that lives in paris and is going tomorrow to caraibas (???) for some time to work

Vitry-sur-Seine

The morning, for most, was recovering from an hangover (to forgot :p)

after lunch we saw the movie Unser Täglich Brot, a great silent movie about industry animal and vegetable production....

in the night, was the day for spanish dinner, soup and tortilla :p

Vitry-sur-Seine

in the morning we lost all the time in the fucking police, as the group decided to report (although all agreed they would not do anything...)

In the night we had a crazy party in Remi's house in paris, from SCI...the ambient, after the robbery was not the best, but we had fun...

Vitry-sur-Seine

In the morning we harvest green peas in Planete Lilas ;)

spring, ladybugs making love :)

Then we had lunch with the volunteers there and we celebrate Matilda's birthday ;)...

Matilde and her wonderful smileDuarte, ..., Justo, Paki, leida, matilde, marco, ..., ..., hugo, sara, chloe, diego, dani, lela, ..., tomasso, me and carlos

After lunch, and rest, we went to the patatoes field to spread compost on the land...
In the night, with carlos, repu and diego, i went back to the tmplab, but it was closed... so we went to see a poppy field...
When we return to the house, we found out we had been robbed!!! and my computer was missing :(

Vitry-sur-Seine

Rainning all day we almost dind't got out of the house...

in the morning we had a presentation on veg*nism, the reasons and how to....

in the afternoon we had a presentation from one of the SCI volunteer, the peace messenger, about peace and environment...

preparing dinnercarlos preparing (recycled) decoration

This night was the portuguese dinner night, and we made a Saint Antony popular dinner, with vegetable soup, beans rice, grilled veggies and a raw sweet desert of figs and almonds ;)

Vitry-sur-Seine

In the morning we went to Planete Lilas to help out... while some transplanted topinambur, a root vegetable - like a potato - of the family of sunflowers, other continued to plant cabbages in the next garden.

The spanish cooked the (greasy) lunch and after we had a free afternoon, most of the people used it to go to visit paris, me and carlos decided to visit the /tmp/lab, the local hacklab, a free place to experiment and play with software and hardware... the place was amazing, quite punk and at the same time ultra-technological, from electronic-microscope (to reverse-engineer crypto-chips) to a mobile phone server antenna and lots of wireless experiences, you could find all different kinds of projects, there we meet philip who explained us some of the projects there, he was recently also working on different OpenSoftware licenses, like the eGPL and CUL, two new licenses that can be resumed to "free but with ethic"...

Our visit to the tmplab was fast as they are preparing the HackerSpace Festival and doing some presentations in other places and then we caught the train to paris, to meet the others, and have a party (music and dancing) in the senna...

Vitry-sur-Seine

We woke up early to go visit an huge industrialized port in the senna, the port Bonneuil, we did a trip by boat with some explanation on ecological developments in the port and about water transportation (much more ecological and efficient, although slower, of transporting goods)

Then we had a walk in the riverside trying to identify some local trees and a presentation on how to identify them.

Back "home", we had lunch and discuss about the planed activities for next days (and alternatives when raining a lot), with not so many conclusions, after lunch, without a siesta and under a it of rain, we walked to Planete Lilas and helped transplanting some cabbages, distributing animal bones (!!! no one could explain why properly !!!) and compost in the ground, cover it with an industrialized biodegradable plastic (made of corn, no petrol, by the way, all the beer glasses in the antifascist festival were also made from corn) and finally putting the cabbages on the ground.

Back home, jenny, another volunteer from SCI, prepared us a game/meal, called insolent meal where we played and learned about food and other resources proportions in different continents in the world...

When most of the people were already a sleep, diego, jenny, repu, me and tomasso stayed out talking till late...

Vitry-sur-Seine

In the morning, a small group, me included to help with possible problems, went to paris by metro to get some bicycles back to Vitry (we lost 3 hours to make around 20 km!!)...

we had lunch and a talk about eating dead bodies (normally called meat) or not...

In the afternoon we went back to Park Lilas and had a presentation about the insects, the ones that help the agriculture process and others and some tips how to get an equilibrium (using "good" bugs that eat the "bad" bags) without chemicals, after the presentation we went to see the fields of Planete Lilas the host partner of this exchange, understand how they work (they produce some vegetables to sell with fair prices to local population and voluntaries)

With the help of one voluntary from SCI we built a compost bin with wood pallets in the park and talk about its function...

When we returned home we had a band playing and dancing, some friends of matilde, and the italian prepared the dinner (pasta with tomato and basilica)... We had a meeting and went to bed (vitry is not so urbanized, so some people, despite the rain, were sleeping in tents in the garden)

Paris -> Vitry-sur-Seine

We had a presentation about the project Salvation Army and then caught a bus to Vitry-sur-Seine, he place where we wil stay the rest of the days... we unpacked the things in a kind of school where we will sleep and then we talked about food in these days, not everyone was vegetarian (there were even lots of people that never had contacted with it) and hugo is even trying o be raw vegan and most of the people who came decided it as a last minute thing, in a way to visit france for "free" (the meeting is sponsored by EU) and some were not even a little interested in the themes we were going to talk and work on...

After we visited with (Can't remember his name, help please!) the park Lilas, where the project of biological agriculture we were going to be voluntaries on was... it was a really big park, in a place that building construction is not allowed...

hope some day i got the pictures from other participants to fill this days...

Paris

In the morning helena was back and we talked a lot... we discovered some common places e new in Lodz (she was also in the walked around in the cockroaches dormitory)...and she had lots to talk about in her hitch-hiking trips... unluckly we were both with not so much time to talk...so it were few, but intensive, minutes talking :) in her really small house in the celling of a building in the center...

Then i walked alone in the turistic parts of paris and finally went to the Salvation Army Headquarters, the meeting point where i would meet Sara, Hugo and Duarte from portugal and all te others participants in the exchange meeting on "Respect begins in your plate : food, environment and sustainable development"

There i meet al the participants from spain, italy, portugal and france and we went out to walk near the sena... in the night we sleept in the Salvation Army buiding, a place used normaly for homeless people, so there was some resistance about higine from some people... in the end we cleaned a bit the place and passed the night there...

Briançon -> Paris

I woke up round 5 and, after having breakfast, the first car who passed ported me to Grenoble... the guy just spoke french, so it was not easy to communicate, he was going to his work and in the way we made an amazingly beautiful road passing some glaciers that are all year covered in snow... i had really beautiful pictures of this small part of this trip, but not any more...

Arriving in Grenoble he insisted in paying me a coffee and then i started hitch-hiking to Lyon... the place (as i was again inside a city) was not the easiest one to be picked up, but luckily a nice guy from mexico, Salomon, picked me and ported me just few kilometres to a place he thought was a better one... and it was, as in less than 5 minutes i got a lift to Lyon...

The guy who picked me left me in the metro and told me that it would be better to cross the city by metro and start in the other side to go to paris... and another time, following my driver tips i found a lift in 5 minutes (i think i was really lucky as Lyon is known as Hitchers Hell of France)...

The nice young couple who picked me left me near Mâcon in the highway entrance...there i wait for an hour and a guy picked just to port me few kilometres again to the next highway exit... there i was really lucky, and after 15 minutes waiting, an really nice old guy (he would be probably over 85!!), Mr Signorino, picked me in a expensive car and ported me to paris...

Already in paris, around 17:00, i walked around, realizing my mobile phone was not working (somehow when entering france they blocked my phone - is still not allowing me to make calls) and contacting helena, from HospitalityClub was not easy... finally i was able to contacted her and he had a funny encounter in a metro station... it was already really late (around midnight) and we had lots to talk in really short time as she had to meet a friend...

Bologna -> Briançon

Started hichhking early...as usual, getting out of the city is hard, and i lost more than one hour in a place that was not the right one to start... when i realize it, i walked to the entry of the highway, and there, after 2 hour (not so many cars passed there...maybe one each 5 minutes), one guy picked me and left me in a gas station before parma...

In that gas station (with police coming every half hour - they didn't say anything, but i avoided hitchhiking when they were around, as it's not allowed to hitchhike on highways) i lost around 5 hors as most of the people were going in different direction than the one i wanted and finally found a relly nice truck driver (from albania) who brought me to torino and even left me in another gas station after the city (so it's easier to find people as most of the people are not going to the near city)...

It was already night, but after one or two hours, a german guy who leave in the mountain in france near the border picked me and left me in a city called Briançon, it was rainning a LOT and as it was already out of the highway not so many cars at that time were passing, so i decided to sleep for some hours in a nice bus station (this place is really high, so bus stations are almost small houses, because with snow in the winter should be really cold)

Lyon -> Elche

We arrived Alicante around 11:00 in the moorning and he left me in the university, i then hitchike to the center and met Javi at his parents house, I finally got my bike again :D..
I packed the bike and cycled to Elche to meet Mabel, nice to see this wonderful sun again :D... it's like being in the tropics, comparing to amsterdam...
Then we went to the park till late where Mabel and her friends were juggling ;)

Amsterdam -> Lyon

We woke up early and hitchhiked to Rotterdam, we walk a little there and caught the train to Roosendaal, where I would meet my lift...
At 17:00, Harry arrived and we start the trip directly to Alicante, 15 hours total, we stoped few times in the way and talked a lot, he is a funny guy who already traveled a lot by bike with his wife :)... maybe I'll visit him again here in Spain.

Paris -> Amsterdam

Waked up after 5 hours of sleep at 2:00 am... Peter started driving and, after passing Belgium without stopping, we stop in the deposit where Peter had to deliver...

After he drove me to Harleem and there i caught a bus to Amsterdam...

first picture of Amsterdam... the city of bikes ;)

Central Station

Arriving there I looked for Yolanda's house in the center, a recent squatted building... She met me there and we cycled to her other house...

really nice to meet Yolanda again, she was other of my inspirations to make this trip... as she had travel all last year around Europe also by bike (from Portugal to Turkey) in a similar way as I'm planning (Bicycle + other transports except plane)...

Somewhere in France -> Paris

After 8 hours of sleep we wake up and start the trip, all day talking, Peter is a really nice (and crazy) dutch guy who leaves now in Spain.
Then we had to stop again to had dinner and sleep, around 18, in the suburbs of Paris... Really weird time to go to bed :s! Being a truck driver should get you crazy fast :p

Barcelona -> Somewhere in France

I woke up at 6 because my mother was also going away and my plan was to try to hitchhike to Amsterdam.

Luckily, I found a public bicycle bad parked and (I know it was illegal, but at least i returned it to a right parking spot :D) cycled to a cross that led to the highway direction France.

After 1 or 2 hour a car parked and i could ask them to leave me in a gas station in the way... There, I was asking the people who stopped for an hitchhike direction La Jonquera, the last small village before the border with France, a place Tomaz told me was great to hitchhike everywhere in europe, as thousands of trucks park there to fill the tank every day...

It was a really small gas station and most of the people who stopped was going in the opposite direction, finally I met 2 guys who were going in that direction and even to France for holidays but they had to stop in their house to have lunch and pick two horses (they were horse ferradores)...

Martí showed me his house and I had lunch with him, his brother and wife and their children... The house was really beautiful and in the end I helped with the horses and we start the trip, after some hours we were in Jonquera.

As it was around holidays (Christmas and new year) there were not so many trucks as usual as the truck drivers explain me, so I had to wait (asking all the trucks that i could) for a truck direction Holland, after 5 hours, the first truck I asked going in that direction let me in :)

Peter drove for some hours and had to stop, somewhere in France, to sleep (by law truck drivers must stop several hours per day and work in crazy schedules)...