. . .

This route develops slowly to my most hitched route ever I think. Because of the bad experience I had hitchhiking this route last time I chose the easy way out which costs a little bit of money but I don t hitchhike because it s a strict way of life but because it makes sense (ecology & finance).
So I first took a train to Strasbourg and from there to Stephansfeld – an option I was using before. This way I avoid the difficult swapping of Highways from the A5 in Germany to the A4 in France crossing Strasbourg. But there is a price attached to this luxury. approx. 16 € costs the trip with regional trains.
That s not really cheap but I ve got good reasons to try to be in Paris in time – I m going to see my girlfriend again after incredible 16 months not having seen her in real-life.
The calculation works out: I just need two rides to get to Paris Charles de Gaulle where I take the RER into town (another 9.10 €). I ve started back home at 7.38 am an got to Charles-de-Gaule, which I consider Paris already at 4.30 pm. Not to bad in the end. Approx 9 hours for approx. 600 km.

In Paris the weather sucks but we have not planed to run around outside in the first days at least. Today we went with the velib bicycles to an organic marked and bought awesome food. Quite a strange feeling to buy vegetables again in a marked – an experience I didn t had for a few months thanks to the GartenCoop ….

Nacht – Gewitter – Regen zieht auf – noch 20 km bis nach Hause – Fahrrad – Lieber Gas geben – vll. schaff ich es ja noch vor dem Regen – Faszinierender Himmel – Blitze – Wetterleuchten – Donner – Das letzte Dorf ist passiert – jetzt sind es nur noch 4 km – die Strecke führt größtenteils durch den Wald, wenigstens einigermaßen vor dem Wind und dem Gewitter geschützt – Bam – bin über irgendwas kantiges drübergefahren – sowohl vorne als auch hinten hat es bis zur Felge durchgeschlagen – 20 Meter weiter: Scheiße, Platten hinten – Der Regen fängt an – zum Glück alles dabei (außer Regenklamotten) – Head-Lamp raus – Werzeug in die Hände – Bremse weg – Rad raus- Aber halt – wie kriegt man diese scheiß Weber Kupplung da weg? – Gefriemel – neuer Schlauch rein – wenigstens ein bisschen notdürftig Luft pumpen – klatschnass die letzten Kilometer noch nach Hause radeln – DUSCHE!
Postfossilistische Mobilität ist manchmal echt hart …

“Die konstituierte Allgemeinheit des als Gleicher behandelten Staatsbürgers vermittels der Ubiquität eines dominanten Staates und die Verallgemeinerung der Qualitäten sozial und kulturell differenzierter sozialer Gruppierungen in die Allgemeinheit bloßer Agglomerationen von Besitzern äquivalenter Waren beinhaltet die Gefahr, daß der Blick für die Vielfalt der Alternativen den nach solchen Bildern argumentierenden Sozialwissenschaften verschüttet wird.”

Goetze, Dieter 1986: Vom Nutzen einer Ethnosoziologie. In: H. Reimann: Soziologie und Ethnologie. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, S. 131.

Manchmal ist es eine Qual sich den Ergüssen von Professoren zu ergeben …

I ve made it back home but getting out of Geneve was a pain in the ass. Too many Feraries and fancy cars for me. I had a sign saying “Bern” which is not too far away from Geneva but maybe Sunday morning ist just not the time for people to travel any further …

Anyway – now back home. Visited my family back home and already started some work at the radio and our local gardening project.

So hey guys – I m back in Europe. Today I m going to hitchhike from Geneva to Freiburg (Germany)

Lets see if this hitchhiking still works

First notice: Don t worry. I m alright and I m keeping out of trouble… planning to be back in Germany at the 6th of February.

Second: Since my last post I ve visited Luxor and El Quseir. First place full of touts, temples and tombs. Second place a calm historic beach town. I ve met very very nice people here in Egypt who took a lot of care about me. They invited me for food, transportation, tea and shisha.

As you all know on the 25th of January the people of Egypt rose up against their dictator… As far as I m concerned I ve seen as much of these protests as you did. The only demonstration I ve seen was a pro-Mubarak demonstration in Hurghada. Staged right after switching on the internet – guiding the demo through the tourist street so all the foreigners see that the egyptians love their dictator.

Evene though I have not participated in nor seen the protests I spend a big share of my day discussing the developments with my Couchsurfing hosts.

As announced in my last post I moved away from the Red Sea to see some cultural sights and check out the agricultural area of Egypt. I took a bus from Hurghada to Aswan (which took me almost 12 hours) and met a Couchsrufer on the bus. Fortunatelly I managed to stay as well with her host here in Aswan. There are 4 Couchsurfer right now at his place. Yesterday I ve woke up at 3 am to see Abu Simble which is still 281 Km south of Aswan.

On the tour I ve visited as well the High Dam with its 500 km long Nasser lake, the Philae Temples and the unfinished Oblisc. In general Egypt is pretty okay with the prices, especially if you can count on some locals who help you in finding the right price. The problem is that there are so many things to see that its hard to keep track of your money. Transport there, entry fee here, food there,…. and the money goes. Fortunatelly they ve got on all sites a student reduction from around 50 %.

Further Plan: Sailing Boat trip on the Nile, Temple of Luxor, Diving in Al Quasir.

The thesis is gone and I m happy that this time is over. My studies at the university are not finished. There are still three oral-exams pending.

Before starting to prepare these exams I decided to take a few weeks of and go to Egypt. Just the right time to head to northern Africa.

Hurghada, where I landed, is still a huge construction zone. There a building a city from scratch. Despite military installations there was not much before the 1970s at this place. After the war with Israel the place developed as a tourist destination, entire new (private) cities were build and a new airport is in construction as well. Hardly any road is paved and practically nobody in Hurghada is really from Hurghada. A huge young, male workforce is in town but no ancient markets or parks or anything like that. Parks would be hard to maintain anyway since all the water gets transported into town from somewhere else. The next agricultural area is the Nile-delta. There is NOTHING here despite beaches – and the beaches are mostly private. They charge you approx. 3 EURO to hang around there. Sth. impossible in Costa Rica for example where all beaches are – by law – public!

My plans for the next days have not really developed yet but I m definitely going to Nile-delta to the the agricultural belt and the ancient cities of Egypt.

Finally managed to log in again in my blog. My old way to log in didn t work since they ve changed to this community system.

But anyway – I haven t been hitchhiking too much in the last few months even though I ve been travelling quit a bit. Somehow I wasn t traveling alone lately and together we organised relatively cheap transport each time.

I ve been working on my thesis in the last weeks. Still one month to go for the thesis and then I ve got to leave this cold weather here in Central Europe and enjoy a bit the sun of the Red & Mediterranean Sea.