Free in the forest

I had just missed my flight to Brazil, when I opened my eyes in the pitch dark bedroom in Raeren. I had come to Astrid’s parents place for the weekend.  It’s  a tiny village close to Eupen, a German speaking area of Belgium and also my favorite part of the country.  It is surrounded by woods and biofarms, a big bright blue lake and beautiful houses.

After 15 minutes cycling, I was out of breath as the breaks of the bikes were constantly on. Astrid’s brother was a good sport and suggested he will take that bike, so we can continue. And off we went further in the forest.

There was one long steady uphill kilometer where all of a sudden one by one pensioners started to overtake me. With smiling faces and grey hair flowing in the summer breeze they seemed to effortlessly pedal their way pass me as I was trying to breathe more silently and not to wiggle so much with the handlebar and respond with the same bright smile.

After the third oldie passed me, I was paying more attention to this mystery and I saw a suspicious box attached either at the back of their bike or below the frame in the middle. They were on e-bikes!  Cheeky J

We got to this huge grassland for cows. Looking behind the fence we saw many of them far away. White with black patches, white with brown patches, some light brown ones. They also noticed the three of us and came the whole way over to check us out. When you have 15 cows marching towards you and you are a city dweller then it gets a bit scary! But I decided to make friends with them and Moo’d happily as they had taken their position in the big bushes just close to the fence.  It seemed completely odd thing to do as the rest of the field was open grass. But maybe they wanted to first monitor us from this hideout.

From the bushes they saw one of these three creatures mooing in a very untalented way, but with persistence, while the other two supported with silence. Clearly they intend no harm. They also heard “Don’t worry, I’m vegetarian, I will not eat you…. Mooo, Mooo”

Soon enough the first one slowly made it’s way to the fence looking at me what I considered a curiosity. She even let me touch her nose. Her followers restricted themselves with a sniff of my hand. Have you ever had a cow sniffing you? Well now I have. When I Mooed they looked at me. They did not Moo back. After some time though the cows no longer found us interesting and they turned back to the bushes and every single one had their ass towards us. We took a hint and left.

Everything so green, birds singing, smell of forest. I thought I would like to stay in a forest hut for a week or so. I had just recently listened to an Estonian radio show, where 22 year old girl, who was a playboy cover girl, but now lives in the forest and recently finished 5 months long juice diet, explained how she practically never goes to supermarket. She went on explaining all the different things you can find in the forest to eat. One of them was suggestion to eat the light colored ends of the fir trees (Christmas trees). These are the new-growth tips that come in springtime. So now in this forest I had an opportunity to test it out. Wow, I really liked them! Astrid was a bit ambivalent and her brother refused to try and started offering me every now anything else that was growing on the ground. Once though he offered young leaves of a Dandylion and to his surprise Astrid and I both gave him a big smile and happily started to munch on them.  

What a healthy day.

Sing a song

She is a 27y old Irish girl, wonderful beautiful person and a friend of mine. A traveler with one way ticket. A yoga teacher, reiki healer, meditator, fun lover, easy goer and cool. And I love her to bits.

I met Paula in Kuala Lumpur in October last year. We spent an evening and a day together. She had just come from Philippines, me from Borneo. She was going to Ireland, I had many and then again no idea where I would be going. But through the conversations with her and other people at the hostel, I figured out exactly what I wanted to do.

All the while after that she has still continued travelling. We met now in Brussels as this is the budget gateway to Mexico (150euro one way!!!).

How wonderful to talk to a traveler again! And this is not to say I somehow value less my other friends. It is just that certain topics with her are so easy to discuss and seem less “crazy”. My sister in spirit as another one of my friends described her.

I woke up at 5AM to say goodbye as Paula was catching an early morning flight. Enough rested or perhaps just excited almost as if I was flying off, I didn’t go to sleep again. Bright light from outside came in as I opened the curtains. I sat down on my meditation cushion and as I became better aware of my surroundings I heard the birds singing.

Dumpster-diving for a credit card

I'm a lawbreaker and live unregistered in my current hideout in Brussels. I'm still registered in the apartment that I left in October 2011. At that time it was a dilemma whether to keep myself registered in Brussels or  not, but insurance regulations decided it for me. My travel insurance would fly my sick body to the country that I'm registered to. I don't have health insurance in Estonia, so Belgium had to remain as the motherland.

Anyhow, back in Brussels there were some reasons why I had to postpone registering myself to my new address. At the same time my old apartment has remained empty. It is social housing with probably thousands of people in the queue waiting to get a cheap place to live, but the Brussels city takes its time. It has been only, what, 9 months since the apartment is completely empty. My flatmates and my name are still on the doorbell. So every now and then I pass by the old apartment building to check the post. I have to wait besides the door until someone happens to go in or get out and be their shadow.

Today I got there and discovered the post box to be empty. I knew that there were supposed to be important papers for me. I was expecting to pick up tax return form which I have to fill in and send out before the end of the month. But there was nothing. I waited for another person to come in or go out, so I could get through the second locked door and make my way to the garbage room.

Soon enough I was going through the paper bin (thank god/belgium on&off government for the sorting of garbage!) and I found my tax return papers, a city tax bill and my new credit card.This has been the most successful half an hour in a dumpster for me so far! Though at home i once found a 5 euro bill in the bin. Just papers, business papers (The Dude).