Casa Robino

Pedal, pedal, pedal, thumb, thumb, thumb. Look left, look right, flat farms, all identical. Stick out your thumb. 5, 10, 15 minuted. Red lights, brake. stop. get in. Ride.

Our journeys to Texel may have been quite different, but in the end we all arrived. Two may have biked, four may have hiked. Who cares. We are all here together, out of the casa robino.

Six o' clock this morning they woke up (well, that's what they said) and I just called them (Rene and Davide): they were already cycling north of Alkmaar... As a nice surprise, six of us are going up to Texel for a short adventure, two are cycling, and 4 will be hitching today. We found a nice host who is ok with us 'squatting' his place and cooking for him, and there are old friends to meet.

Just before leaving to Slovenia, two weeks ago, I was given a lightfoot letter by amylin. I was to deliver this one in Nurnberg to her friend Lea. On my way back I finally was able to make a stop-over and stay there for a night.

Sitting outside a petrol station 60km from Verona, 30km after Trieste, at 530am. Hitching today was crazy. How does it happen that people and events just bring you to places that you never thought of arriving before?

I was picked up by a Dutch guy just before Nuerenberg and 9 hours later we are here in Italy, just 250 km away from my end-destination, but through a totally different route than planned before? And without the planned stop-over in Munich, the city we passed, the city I was unable to enter.

Today, when I was going back home form the Uni, I got a ride from a really friendly retired pilot.

While still working, he was often transporting VIPs.

Once, when he was heading to small airport nearby Paris, to take a plane and fly to pick up Edouard Leclerc, he saw on the Ringroad (at Porte d'Orleans) a hitchhiker with "Nice" sign. He picked him up and they started talking about more or less whatever.

Few moments later the hitchhiker realises:
- Why do you turn out of the highway? Hey, that's not the right way to Nice!

Feeling sort of guilty about a recent trip up north, shamelessly flying around like there's no worry of tomorrow. I guess that's just the house affecting me a little bit with ideology and all the casa-connected hitch-hikers awe-strucking my old comfort-craving bones.

Just some examples:
* Slovenia - Amsterdam: 2 days (Aris & Urshka)
* Estonia - Amsterdam: 4 days? (Kadri)
* Morocco Marrakech - Amsterdam: 3 days? 3.5 days(Amylin)
* Amsterdam - Avignon: 11h? 13h30 (Lena)

The Gospel of Non-Possession, as a Commonality between Ghandi, Jesus, Buddha, Nomadic Dumpster Diving Radical Hosting HitchHikers, Free Open Source Programmers and fully p2p/distributed processes?

Ghandi: " I found that, If I kept anything as my own, I had to defend it against the whole world.If they want it and would take it, they do so not from any malicious motive, but they would do it because theirs was a greater need than mine."

After some days of casa-rest (with just Robino and Amylin here most of the time), the house has received some new hosts again. Since yesterday and today we have Mathieu, Lousia, Capers and Charlie here, who both arrived with wonderful stories, including Capers fund-raising and building a school in Kenya & Charlie biking around the world.

I just realized that I can't seem to find my hitchhiking notebook anywhere. I've somewhere, somehow lost it.

My hitchhiking notebook is an unlined white notebook full of signs, destinations I've hitchhiked in the past 6 months, over two continents and innumerable locations.

It had a lot of sentimental value and stories attached to it (obviously), and as it was full, I was planning to scan its pages in at CasaRobino before I left, but the scanners were not yet working. Some of the signs were nice drawings, and I wanted a way to preserve them.

Amylin, just before hitchhiking to Grenoble and Porto, leaving the comfy casa for 2,633 km of snow and rain... Photo by Anu, retouched by amylin.

P.S. I'm pretty sure the "Share a photo" feature is broken. This one is hosted by flickr.