OK, well yes. First Every Fucking City is the Same.
But, now that I am back again (it still amazes me that I am back, and keep making it back) there are several things I need to write down. I will begin with the story of the walk.
Several small (and I hoped photogenic) towns lay between train routs. I decide (the night before) that it would be great fun to walk between the towns so I could stop when I like and shoot what I like. So the next morning hours before the sun came up I hefted the 35lb pack containing everything (I weighed it when I got to the airport!) and went out the door. The plan was to follow the railroad track so I would not get lost (as you know I had no map of even the Nehterlands and I was in Belgum) The station was closed and there were too many tracks to know which went where. fuck, the one contingency I forgot to take into consideration. well, hum. So I found the highway and began walking on it. After several honks (yes, I was walking on the highway) I decided to try to parallel the highway from a ways off... Anyway about that time it started raining. (the one contingency (other than the train track thing, and the map) I had forgot about) oh well, I had the clothing and could always just hold my arm over the camera untill it stopped.
So, I found another, smaller, path to follow and it seemed to be going in the right direction. still raining. And due to this, no sunrise. But as it got lighter the bottoms of my feet began to hurt. No worries, I would stop in the first town and have some breakfast.
Seemed as though it was sunday. No one was out, in any town, every store, cafe, bar was closed. hum... the one thing I didn't plan on...
As the day progressed I began reminding myself "There is no Foot" to help keep from thinking about the foot pain that was by 10am making me limp a bit. I counted steps (in the by now cold steady rain) between what seemed like 1/10 k markers in some spots of the path. between 115 and 130 steps for 1/10k. Then I began thinking I didn't have a map, didn't know how far I had to go really, or where I was going exactily. I have no map. BUT THEN it hit me, and a calming internal zen-like laughter swept through me. I remembered Johnny from the chineese resturant calling me Maaaaaaaap. I AM MAP. I no longer needed a map. Anyway, I got to the city (that was over 20k away, maybe as much as 24k) and it was a shit-hole tourist trap French-speaking little town.
Ok, so that was that. more to come later...
