TRACKING THE WENDIGO

Slept in too long again. Hungover when I woke up - no - still drunk. Hangover growing like some righteous succulent in my spine-brain-gut... We leap two trains out of Paris to Massy, walk 10 minutes out of town to this good hitching spot leading onto the A10 under a freeway complex. Great weather! And strange little black and orange bugs in the sandy dirt beside the road...

The Hallucination Race is being won by Maria at the moment, who I have seen 3 times now, Flick and Sam are joint 2nd with one sighting each.

This guy Erwan stopped for us and told us he would help us once he dropped his car-load of furniture. We did as he instruced and hopped another train south to St Remy where two friends of Erwan's picked us up and drove us out to Dampierre, a picturesque village-town somewhere south of Paris, where I sat full of sunshine and rustic garden, hungover as all hell, huge tress, big old house and a little apartment in the garden which Erwan is refurbishing. I'm beginning to realise how infuriating language barriers are...

Erwan is driving down to the Ile D'Oleron down by La Rochelle tonight to meet family there, and he's taking us with him! Tonight! Arriving at 2am means he is letting us crash at his family's place there, then we will be about an hour's drive from Bordeaux.

Slow start day. Noora fired off ten or so CS notices, bulletins of emigration! Hopefully by tonight we will have some luck in either Bordeaux or Toulouse, so the plan is to be in the French Deep South by tomorrow night.

This morning we stalked Heloise and Abelard to their grave in Pere Lachaise. Saw Jim, Oscar, Georges etc.

The multitude of freemasonry symbols throughout Pere Lachaise makes ya think...

Then we lunched on croissants, juice and tiramisu! In a park not far from Pere L.

I may have shouted that the Centre Pompidou "HAS IT'S INTESTINES ON THE OUTSIDE!". Well, it does.

Then we shot back to the apartment for a party! Wild, wailing vistas of French... Fantastic.

Yes, that IS about as good as my french gets.

First thing's first - if anyone happens to read this on a regular basis, I think the chances of me managing to maintain a twice-a-day post rate are pretty slim. Noora and I get on the road properly on Saturday morning so from then on my presence online might be somewhat sketchy...

And I think I'm just going to copy from hand written journals if I can - out of laziness and ease etc.... So here goes:

Slept in until 1pm!! Some adventurer me... Then Noora and I dressed spiffy and went a-roving. We raided a local Supermarché for croissants, champagne, crepes, blueberries and raspberries etc. Searched for a park but lost it's scent and by 3pm we were so hungry we found a bench on which to enjoy our champagne breakfast. As the city was getting humid and the rain began we careered through the streets taking our fill straight from the champagne - turns out that such delinquent behaviour is less acceptable in these non-Viking countries. BAH!!

We jumped on the Metro down to Chatelet and acquired a neat circle of vacancy around our alkey selves. We found Notre Dame as the rain began to get heavier.

We stumbled onto the Rue St Jacques and spotted a sign above a little shop:

Heavy dark red door leads to small shop with antique bookshelves supporting a most fascinating collection of tomes... All in French of course, including a collection on/by Gurdjieff (cheers Kev!), which tempted me. A giant Alsatian lay on the floorboards like a sad-eyed familiar.

The old woman with the horn-rimmed glasses glances between the collections on Crowley and the empirical investigations on La Diable. Another woman entered between Noora and I and was ushered instantly into a back room where an old man was hunched over a large mug of beetle tea. Voices were raised. We left, perhaps prematurely. On the same road were 5 or 6 comic book shops that reminded me of Lampeter folk. We stormed out of a "Manga Café" that served no coffee. Instead we found Zig Zag Café, gorgeous place on the Rue Lanneau. Noora and I discussed the morals of shop-lifting, the potential fall of Capitalism and the fraternité between the imagery of the Russian Orthodox Church and the effective practice of Tarot.

Then we stumbled upon the twisted bestial gargoyles and gothic-hippy-ascetic-fortress-Euclidean arches of the Eglise de St Severin. Walking in there was akin to an aesthetic awakening - as if - OR - by what I mean is - it didn't strike me as a religious building - in as much as - I imagined it had no specific religious connotations - stunning - pure tranquilité - the sober - NO - the LUCID feeling of an intensely good place.

Then back to the apartment for dinner and SUPERB wine.

This weekend is the National French super-mega-happy-funtime-party!!! (Yes, I did in fact forget it's real name), something to do with culling the toffs of yesteryear... VIVE LA REVOLUTION!!

Tomorrow will be more exploring, perhaps La Louvre et La Cemetiere du Pere Lachaise.

Hence any typos. So I have made it as far as Paris at least! Spent one night in London with Jo at her immaculate house which was awesome. All that day I had such red-blooded, huge hearted advice from Jo about Morocco, will serve me well, what a star. London sleepeth not. I eyed a copy of The Golden Age of Soviet Theatre as I fell asleep...

Then a short cramped train ride and one loooong, lazy bus ride from London Victoria direct to Paris and here I am! I spent a whole hour or so being homeless, how daring of me, before I knew whether or not Noora had managed to hitch from Barcelona to Paris in 2 days - which she had, of course. I met her wandering frantically around the underground coach metropolis in Bagnolet, where my coach from London came into.

The ferry crossing was good fun, convoy of stern seagulls, moody like assassins, guided a few hundred of us across The Sleeve. Kerouac and coffee by the portholes while they sold massages in the Main Lounge... Superb recommendation by the way Ross, Lonesome Traveller is first class!

We are staying with four Parisian guys, real party lovers! Great hosts. I am the only person here speaking my first language!

Today.... Explore Paris! The apartment we are in is practically at the foot of the rear wall to the Pere Lachaise Cemetary out on the east side of the city, perhaps that will be our first exploration...

I have various sacks and bags and satchels and hold-alls and carriers lying around all over the place - and various things that would look good inside said conveyers - and now the fun of deciding what to take begins in earnest. I'm playing around with it and tomorrow I hope to go for a long walk with a full backpack to decide finally whether or not it is too heavy for 6-8 weeks of hitchhiking/CouchSurfing/Camping madness.

The route, like The Song, remains the same. Noora (who I believe is still in Europe SOMEWHERE) is attending the Nowhere Festival outside Zaragoza in early July, so where exactly we'll meet remains a mystery...

The nerves... Oh how they kick in when you have to click CONFIRM for an online ferry booking.

The only thing that really remains with regard to this adventure is to get up one morning and walk out the front door, and I find myself repeating the adage that "there is no courage without fear, there is no courage without fear"....

Reading Hakim Bey last night, now travel really does appear to be the manifestation of the dynamic and fluid lifestyle that is really the greatest freedom a human being can recognise. At least with nomadism there is a constant effort not to crystallize the self or one's thoughts because there is a constant change in one's surroundings. Which perhaps is conducive to creativity and inspiration, thought and freedom. I think I have decided what the "other book" I'm taking travelling is going to be :P