Autor: philfreu

Took a trip to Grenoble middle of September, all started with an anger and ended up with me owning something I never wanted, so here´s the story.

As I wrote in the Vienna text I wanted to do this by bike as preparation for the Athens trip and because taking long motorbike journeys is my preferred style of doing holidays. I planned the trip to be 4 and a half days long starting Friday after work driving to Stuttgart to stay overnight at a schoolfriends place and continue Saturday to France and return on Tuesday. So I decided to grease the chain of the bike on Thursday evening. Putting oil on the chain is something I too often neglect because I´m a lazy bugger, but actually it makes your bike running more smoothly especially in wet conditions. Ok, to do this you have to put the bike on the main stand to let the rear wheel run free and you have to put the gearbox into neutral – to check if its in neutral one can turn on the ignition shortly – easy peasy. I forgot to turn the ignition off however but said to myself ‘nah, can´t be that bad if it is on for 30 minutes’.

Next morning, me in full gear, everything packed, ready to roll, the bike won´t start – battery empty. For fucks sake Phil, damn you lazy ass. So I called my boss if he can take me to work and was already dwelling on a solution. So we went to a motor shop to buy a new battery, but it seems that every bike needs its special type of battery – next damn, my mood deteriorated even more. Then my boss asks me if I need a car for the trip and it took me 1 second to think about it before I asked him if he was serious (we´ve known each other for 5 months only and I mean he´s a nice and good guy but still, to have this trust in someone is a bit out of the ordinary. I´d have done the same by the way because I´m also a good and nice guy but would never expect this from others.) and since he was sincere it was agreed and my bad mood turned into enthusiasm and my mind started spinning about the different nature that the trip would take but also about the opportunities.

And since every vehicle that belongs to me needs a name, it was pretty much clear on first sight what this one would be called – Orca.

 

So before telling you about the journey here´s some philosophy about the differences between a car and a motorbike.

One of the very obvious advantages of a car is this:

  

You can carry heavy stuff like beer or wine and of course non-alcoholic stuff in ample quantities. I leave it open for guessing which was the the direction of travel.

Another advantage is that you can listen to music and believe me on this journey I made heavy use of this (all in all I spent 30 hours over 4 days and listened through some parts of my library and also to some Greek sagas so if you wanna know something about Ulysses or the war of Troy just ask. Although maybe don´t since I have forgotten most of it by now.). I tried to listen to music once on a motorbike with headphones but never again. The noise from the wind is too loud and you cannot change the volume of the music. Most importantly music is way too distracting, on a motorbike you need to hear whats going on around you, especially in cities, hearing is a very important sometimes life-saving sense on a bike.

And of course when its cold outside or raining, driving shelled is more comfortable. But as I said in the Vienna text, driving through rain has its advantages and I´m pretty much indifferent. But driving through rain for several hours or driving through some heavy downpour can be very, very dangerous. On this journey to Grenoble I had 4 or 5 torrential rain episodes where I was very relieved to sit in a car, on a motorbike this would have been unbearable.

Theres some minor stuff too like driving at high speeds is possible for a longer time, you´re able to drive with other people and have a chat, stopping at scenic views to take quick picture is easier.

But these advantages all get eaten up by the fact that driving a motorbike is way more direct, intense and closer to life as I would put it.

Besides that, cars are slow and sluggish, and when it comes to acceleration you have to come up with a sports car to beat a bike on the traffic lights or when overtaking. Nothing to get carried away I know, just observing the obvious.

Coming back to the trip, I decided to leave 4 am on Saturday to be at Stuttgart for breakfast and then decide if I´ll continue or stay for one day. I did the latter and spend a day at my friends family with their two kids, had some nice chats and watched football with the 5-year-old son, great.

Left on Sunday for the haul to Grenoble, easy peasy, music-listening highway action. Arrived in the evening to have a chat and try some wine. I´m not the big wine expert and am quite determined on the grapes, I basically only drink red wine from Gamay grapes (Beaujolais) or heavy stuff like Syrah or Spanish Tinto, white wine only in summer and the mostly mixed with lemon water. Since I´m German I prefer beer anyway.

Side note: Just today I was thinking about my top 3 beverages, on place 3 we have beer, place 2 is occupied by milk and the winner (with distance) is, well, water. There is no better liquid on this planet than pure, plain water. To add another, a bit morbid anecdote, I tried distilled water once (thats pure H2O without minerals) and if you ever want to taste nothingness this is what you have to drink. So whoever says that tab or mineral water tastes like nothing is wrong. Well, not too far off maybe. Word of caution though: Dont drink more than maybe 50 or 100 ml of distilled water, this shit can kill you, you´ll dry out from the inside (has to do with osmosis in your ingestines).

Man, I´m drifting away. But basically the rest goes like this: I arrived in the evening at my friends place near Grenoble. He lives together with his wife and three kids in a house constantly under construction, theres always something to do. I feel the same about my flat – each year it grips me and then I start to refurbish the kitchen or paint the bathroom.

Next day I took the Orca for a ride to the Gorges d´Ardeche, a mini mini version of the Grand Canyon. The ride took me through the Vercours mountains, a historically important place (in WW2 the Resistancé formed there or at least provided formidable opposition against the German invaders) and a beautiful and scenic place to drive through as is basically everything that stretches from Grenoble to the south – South France with its ethereal scenic landscape is one of my favorite spots for just driving through and being there.

Anyways, next day I left at 9 am and drove the whole 1,000 kms back to Jena in one ride and arrived midnight. I decided to take the road in France, not the highway. Takes much longer but is way more scenic and this trip was all about driving through beautiful landscapes, letting the mind flow and drift and put eyecandy into the brain.

So here are some pictures from the trip

  

 

 

    

 

 

I went to Kiew, capitol of the Ukraine, for a week. A friend of mine was visiting his mother-in-law (lets call her Tamara) together with his wive and daugther and he asked me one evening over a beer whether I want to visit and I had to think about it for maybe two breaths and it was clear – of course I´d do this. But believe me, I had few concerns which of course stem from the political situation but also because of some prejudices I have about former-russian states. I visited Kazakstan in 2011 and pretty much enjoyed it there. There was a wedding going on and we had some adventures in the steppe and endless forests in the north, 4 friends together on a journey. But still, if I should choose which countries I want to visit, former Russia would rate pretty low. Thank god that since my India adventure I don´t have any concerns or fears or bad expectations when it comes to traveling to anywhere – you can throw the gloomiest or scariest looking travel proposal at me and there is chance that I´ll agree, but I´d never say never on the first sight. And this was the case here to some degree but basically it was a no-brainer, thats why I needed only two breaths.

Anyways. I decided to go by train. There is a night train going from Warsaw to Kiew and since I don´t like flying I decided to took it, going from Jena to Berlin, from Berlin to Warsaw, then to Kiew. One day in the train, for two times and I can tell you that it was a very serene, reviving, educational and peaceful experience, a very good thing to do.

                                    

           

           

Once in Kiew my friend picked me up at the crowded train station and we drove 45 minutes with the Metro (which has only three lines) and the Marchutka, small buses with 15 or so seats but with 30 passengers. Transport in Kiew is multi-modal, theres the Metro (fastest), Bus, Martchutka and Tram (slowest) and everythings is dirt cheap, at least for a Westerner, for the Metro you´ll pay around 25 Euro-Cents, the rest is even cheaper. In general the Ukraine is a country where you´ll get around on a stringshoe budget, pack of cigarettes – 1 Euro, beer in a pub – less than a Euro up to maybe 2, transport – see above, vegetables, food on the street – just cheap. But ok, the income is pretty low so thats no surprise.
So we went to have a rich breakfast at Tamaras flat which ended with some liquor since it was my arrival and my first time. I usually don´t drink before noon but hey.

           

                                      

We then went downtown to do some sightseeing and this was quite overwhelming. We went to the artisans quarter, visited Maidan, strolled along the Kreshatnyk boulevard, saw the Rada (parliament) and the Lobanowsky stadium.

                                                               

          

          

                                     

             

            

                                       

              

            

                                             

I guess we walked 100km more or less in weather conditions which I´m definetly not built for, 30 humid degrees with an occasional rain shower in between.
Kiew is a city where you´ll find history on every corner, I´ve never seen a city with so much of a different and long history than Kiev; Rome or Athens maybe, but ok, I´d consider myself only average-travelled. Anyways, In Kiew you´ll find churches, statues or gravestones of warriors, monuments reminding of perils or reminders of of great people of art. But Kiew is still a former soviet city which can be seen on the outskirts where 13-story buildings cover the horizon. I was a guest in one of these for two nights but I got the feeling that it hasn´t been worse or was even nicer than living in one of these areas here in Jena (There are two of those huge socialist-high-story-apartment districts here and I lived in the worse one for half a year during my student time and don´t have many good but some bad memories on this one.). In Kiew even these areas have some flair, each building look a bit different, theres much green and space between them, you´ll find playgrounds for children and small cosy markets, and a nice atmosphere, I never felt insecure there, which basically accounts for the whole journey – no bad shit, no dingy places (ok, we didn´t try to find them), no situations of concern.

Second day was a bit different. We went to a park and met a friend who lives in Kiew since two years to have a chat and some Kwas (delicious bread drink). Afterwards we went to an art exhibition in the Pinshuk Art Gallery which was free of charge (Pinkshuk is the son of Kutschma, a former president, and could be considered an oligarch. So he has lots of money and decided to spend part of it to give the people free art. Make your own decision on this.) and hosted works of Ai Weiwei, Damien Hirst, contemporary Ukrainian artists and as a highlight a performance by Irina Abramowitsch titled “Generator” in which you have to participate to experience it (put on some ear- and eyeblinds and then enter a room with other paricipants. Then you can do whatever you want, walk around, sit, run against the wall or collide with others, for minutes or hours.) – cool experience. The day ended in a bar at the river promenade where we met some friends of my friend, had some beers and talked. Information-wise this was the most productive day.

 

 

 

The Ukraine is in a precarious situation, parts of the country are occupied by separatists and informally under Russian control (thats not the official version though). Huge parts are agricultural and could be considered underdeveloped, going to the rural part and also what I saw from the train was like traveling back in time 20 to 30 years. But the youth clearly has arrived in the western lifestyle without losing that Eastern European charm though. And I´m not sure which way the Ukraine will take in the next month or years and I heard different opinions on this. One was that the occupied parts should be given to the Russians to have some kind of peace, but honestly whats next? First, Russia would not accept this since it would mean to acknowledge the fact that they have been officially involved and second Putin would then never accept that the rest of the Ukraine leans towards the West. In my opinion Putins wants the Ukraine to be a buffer state against Europe and the NATO so one solution might be that the Ukraine buries its dream of becoming a Western state and decides to become something like a Switzerland of the East, being neutral and open for both worlds and avoids having foreign military in their country. And I think that sooner or later the people will vote for a president who is neither pro-Russian (they chased Janukowitsch away in 2014, see Maidan protests) nor pro European but rather modestly nationalistic with the best interest for the Ukraine in mind. The war in the east is a war the Ukraine cannot win, it is draining the manpower and people will be more and more tired of the ongoing conflict.

On day three we went to the Lavra, birthplace of Eastern Orthodoxy they say. It is a complex the size of a village with 10 or so opulent churches next to each other and some famous caves where monks settled down in the 10th century to, well, found a religion. We visited parts of the caves, it was crowded, dark and no photos allowed. If you´re religious then this would be something for you.

 

 

Later that day we drove with the train to Tamaras house in the countryside some 80 kms west of Kiev, check Fastiv on Google. Was a two hour trainride (for 35 cents), train was cramped but I enjoyed the ride. Again, although the train was full there was no hassle, no loud idiots, even the drunkards behaved.
We stayed in the small village for two days, there was a lake to swim, a lot of time to write and draw and let the mind wander. One day some friends of the family came over and we had Shashlyk, couple of beers and talks. Talking to the people was different because only few people spoke english, we tried with translating but its not the same and fucking difficult to get a talk going and we left it be after two or three sentences; it felt a bit sad, I´d have loved to talk more.

 

 

 

 

 

On day 5 we took the train back to Kiev, another ride through town back to Tamaras, had a shower, lunch, prepared some postcards, another ride to the train station and thats it, almost. I boarded the train, got into my routine of reading, sleeping, watching the landscape drift by, listening to music and waiting for the border. We stood at the border for 3 hours or so. First, thats because the rail is wider in the Ukraine so all the wagons have to be lifted and fitting wheels have to be assembled which goes with a lot of noise and is quite spooky actually.

            

But more importantly the Ukraine-Poland border is an outer EU border and the Polish border guys are very, very thorough and took the whole train apart looking for smuggled cigarettes and I think I saw them carrying a waste bag full of them. Strange experience and I felt a bit uncomfortable. Thank god I had two hours to switch trains in Warsaw which have been melted down to one hour because of the border action.
Anyways, in Warsaw it was raining so I didn´t leave the station but rather had half a liter of coffee and a sandwich in the local Starbucks (my first time at Starbucks. Coffee was ok, especially after only 4 hours of sleep).

 

So I boarded the train to Berlin, met a cool guy there and we talked our way through. Arrived there, boarded the train to Jena, no hassle, no shit from Warsaw on, easy going.