Thessaloniki

It takes three hours and two lifts to hitch from Volos to Thessaloniki – Greece’s second largest city. My second lift is two twenty-something girls who’ve clearly never considered picking up a hitchhiker before. I approach them at a service station and convince them to take me, despite their hesitation – “Wait… you’re backpacking Europe… alone?” They can hardly believe it. “But aren’t you afraid?” People always ask the same things.

I’m staying at Terra Incognita, a squat near the centre. I find my way there with the help of a map and call my contact D, who meets me at the door and helps me clamber over the dog barricade of wooden pallets halfway up the stairs. I’m sleeping in the guest room and have my pick of four large double bunk-beds. Everything is clean, neat and welcoming. I meet my other new squat-mates in the kitchen – M, ML, B and Yoyo, a German traveler who’s been staying a couple of months already, awaiting friends who went home for Christmas and never returned. Amazingly I’m not the only vegan in the house – Yoyo and D are too. In fact, B is the only meat-eater.

The “P.P.P.” (my nickname for him) arrives later that night. He’s a Punk from Poland, and he’s almost always Pissed. He’s my room-mate for the next three nights and he snores like a bulldozer. Our politics, although both “Anarchist” are extremely different. He’s from the “I’m an anarchist so I’ll do whatever I want” school of thinking, where I’m more of the “I’m an anarchist so I take responsibility for my own actions and how they affect others” school. Still, he’s a nice enough guy.

There’s also a dog and two cats, seperated by the aformentioned dog barricade, lest fighting begin. By far the most interesting furry character though is “The Frog”, a stray cat who spends literally all of his time outside the kitchen window making strange rrrreeeagh noises. He’s named for this and the way he leans around the corner and rotates his neck to look inside. A very creepy cat.

Terra Incognita

Half of the guest room at Terra

The Frog

The White Tower

“Are you by any chance Couchsurfers?” I’ve rushed down to the White Tower after reading on the Thessaloniki CS Group that there’s a picnic happening. “Hey, aren’t you Jo?” asks a girl at the back of the circle. “Um… yes!?” “Do you want something to eat…wait, you’re vegan aren’t you – take one of these!” She hands me a beetroot and lettuce sandwich and I sit down next to her. It turns out this is Evgenia’s best friend. I stayed with Evgenia in Athens and it seems she’s been bigging me up to her friend in Thessaloniki. Thanks Evgenia!

Jon and Sebastien

Sebastien and Jon are two more travelers at the picnic, hitching their way to Egypt. When the picnic ends I take them and their sitar-playing Cypriot host to my favourite steki (social centre), the Migrant’s Place on Ermou, for 50c coffee and €1 beers. Here we discuss traveling, politics, spirituality and conspiracy theories until their eyelids are drooping – these guys have been traveling almost non-stop. Tomorrow they’re hitching to Istanbul.

Hitchhiking money

For giving to drivers who ask for money for lifts

It’s my first shift at the Hunger Strike, now on it’s 29th day. The shift is 2-8pm and involves sitting in the reception area of the Labour Centre with six other people – reading, chatting and playing backgammon. There are also three people upstairs attending to the hunger strikers, we are just the back-up. Within an hour a man has fainted and been hospitalised. They bring him down from the 7th floor in the elevator in a wheelchair. We stand to each side watching as he’s wheeled through us and out the door to the waiting ambulance, followed by a girl with a video camera. It’s upsetting to watch.

Half an hour later another ambulance arrives. I detected a change in atmosphere but couldn’t understand what people were saying. Now I understand. People make way to the side as before and the elevator reveals another gaunt unconscious man, strapped into a wheelchair. There’s trouble getting this one out and several people struggle with the wheelchair, which is lodged behind part of the lift. Tension is rising, but eventually he’s lifted into another chair and wheeled away. There are tears in several eyes this time.

4:30pm, another ambulance arrives. Again a man is brought down in the lift. I’ve been speaking to a friendly girl with good English, but now she goes with him to the hospital.

5pm. Another collapse. People aren’t speaking with me so much. Tension and tiredness perhaps? I read my “Learn Greek” book to keep myself occupied.

6:45pm. I’m talking to an Iraqi man who has come in to ask… what? For help? It’s unclear what he wants or thinks we can do. He asks to speak with the men upstairs and I try to explain the situation to him – these men have not eaten for 29 days. No – nothing. Yes, ok – water, some sugar and salt, but that’s it. They are risking their lives (killing themselves?) to get papers. What on earth makes you think they can give you papers? He eventually seems to understand and I’m told it’s ok to take him up, so we take the lift to the 7th floor where the hunger strikers are. A doctor is taking blood pressure in one room, men lie thin and exhausted in blankets in another with a television. A couple of men walk around slowly or sit with glasses of water. I want to speak with them myself, but questioning my own motives keep me from doing so. Why is it I really want to speak with these men? It seems somehow self-indulgent, like tourism.

We go back down and I buy the Iraqi man a coffee from the bar. He’s telling me he lives in a house with no water or electricity. I resist telling him he’s comparatively lucky. This man is suffering, that others suffer more doesn’t make him suffer less. He asks for my phone number and I give it to him. He never calls.

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23rd February, another General Strike. I go to the demonstration with Yoyo. It’s good to be with someone else, looking out for one another. The demonstration is very large – it’s impossible to tell how large. We’re somewhere in the middle and neither end is in sight. We march down main streets, past shuttered banks and supermarkets, which people try to open with crowbars. A classic moment: marching past a supermarket with a cash point outside, a man in a mask with a sledgehammer waits patiently in line while a woman gets money out, then goes in and smashes it to the crowd’s applause. The woman walks off with her money as though nothing unusual has happened.

Despite elevated heart-rates, nerves on fire, some running and the faint whiff of teargas, we come out unscathed. Police attempt to break the demonstration a number of times, but it holds up until the end. I don’t even need to use my Mallox.

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Kamara - the big arch

The hunger strike supporters are doing an awareness-raising action at Kamara. I arrive late to discover music playing and fliers on the floor, but only two people left. They point me down the road to the bus stop where I find the others fly-postering buses. It goes like this… the bus comes and a few people jump in front to stop it moving. One person gets on the bus and distributes flyers to those inside, while a girl sloshes glue onto the outside of the bus with a big broom and others run in with posters. There’s also a guy writing “solidarity with the hunger strikers” in marker pen on the back of the bus – apart from one bus, which leaves too quickly reading “solidarity with the hung”. Genius. Some of the bus drivers have evidently heard about this in advance of arriving and try to avoid us – but people run at the bus, stand in front of it, yell “MALAKA! MALAKA!” (Greece’s main swearword) and even move plastic barricades in the way of the bus. When everyone’s finished someone shouts “ENDAXI!” (ok) and everyone moves aside to allow the bus to pass. Few buses escape without posters and those that do have a liberal helping of glue sloshed over them anyway.

Rotunda

I arrive at the Rotonda after a hurried make-up session and some clothes grabbed from the ‘free shop’ outside my bedroom. Fortunately, my lateness and the general habit of Greeks to start everything 1-2 hours later than stated synchronise and I arrive just as the procession is beginning. I find the Zombie Geisha, Zombie Nurse and other general zombies from the squat amidst the zombie crowd, stick a plastic bone in my mouth and begin groaning. Tonight is ‘Zombie Riot’. Once again I find myself thinking, you couldn’t get away with this in England! as people fill the streets – moaning, screaming, rolling over cars, stopping all traffic and covering everything from ancient statues to banks, supermarkets and fast food restaurants with fake blood. The slo-mo rioting zombies march the streets for a good hour before retiring to the Polytechnic University, covering that in blood also and proceeding to drink their way through a hell of a lot of beer and spirits amidst live rockabilly bands.

Despite these few exciting sounding ventures, my time in Thessaloniki can mostly be remembered as a lot of time on the computer, an unshakeable feeling of tiredness, cold weather and a lot of coffee. Mostly I’ve been writing, reading blogs and only venturing out occasionlly – mostly to the Migrant’s Place steki, or just to the shops or a walk around.

One particularly epic and interesting walk takes me up into the small old streets that twist up the mountain. Here houses are older and shabbier, some almost shacks. I feel it has more character than the standard white blocks with balconies in the city centre. There’s a castle at the top where I find a party of tourists with a guide. We look at one another curiously, travellers from different worlds.

Old City House

Who lives here?

Castle

Making “March Bracelets” on March 1st. According to tradition now I won’t get sunburned.

The city just ends suddenly where the sea begins – no barrier, nothing. I wonder people don’t just fall in sometimes.

Ruins pop up around almost every corner, a reminder of how ancient this city is

I’m intening to have “goodbye Thessaloniki” drinks with the few friends I’ve made on my last night. Jon, who never made it to Egypt and came back to Thessaloniki after being turned away at the Syrian border, texts to say he’s in hospital with a broken foot. I go to the Migrant’s Place, hoping to see my friend Iovanna – a slightly eccentric 50-something year old woman from Rhodes who lives in a storage room – but she’s not there. All the Terra people are preparing for a concert at Biologica, another steki on the East part of town. There are so many stekis I never visited and one is on the way home – Iskra. I decide to pay them a visit and have a nice political discussion with the guy behind the bar – until he hears I’m vegan and reels away from me as though I’ve shot him in the chest. We talk a while more and I feel it’s time to leave when his girlfriend comes and stands behind him with her hands firmly on his shoulders.

On my way home I pass by the Labour Centre and pop in for the end of the Hunger Strike Support Group’s nightly meeting. These tend to be epic and I find it best to just pop in at the end for a translated summary. Now I hear they’ve spent three hours discussing what to do next. Nobody seems to know and people are still throwing in suggestions. I teach my translator the phrase “clutching at straws”, bid her luck and leave. I’m going to the forest tomorrow and I may not have internet access for a couple of weeks, but she says I can text her for updates. Fingers crossed.

Patras

Anthony and I wait as directed in the coffee bar in Agios Nikolaos, where Camil arrives shortly to pick us up. This is really a stroke of luck – a lift out of Trahila followed by another one all the way to Kalamata with friends of the community (see last post). Camil has a dentist appointment in town. He drops us on his way and we cross the city on foot. It’s a beautiful day.

After a few short lifts we get a long one – all the way to Patras with a Greek truck driver, Yiannis. The only catch is we have a couple of stops for an hour or two each to load and unload the truck. We take the opportunity to walk around and eat the bread, oranges and olive oil we brought with us. I have a two litre bottle of the oil we harvested: my last piece of Trahila. Yiannis comes over with a lettuce from his cargo and a couple of bottles of water for us. He’s not a talkative guy, but he’s obviously generous.

We arrive on the outskirts of Patras around 9pm. Anthony jumps out of the truck to give me a squeeze goodbye. He’s going to continue with our driver all night to Thessaloniki – a little more synchronicity for him.

After some faffing about with buses I get to the centre of town and meet Sma, who’s borrowed a bike from the guys she’s staying with, and we walk together to their flat.

Our hosts are a Greek guy whose name I can’t seem to pronounce and Tony, a Spanish guy who used to be an Erasmus student. They each have their own rooms and keep to themselves mostly, so it’s hardcore internet time for Sma and I who also get our own room and wifi connection. She’s been here almost a week already.

Walking around the following day, the first thing I notice is the migrants. There are people everywhere, especially down by the harbour – lined up along the fences staring longingly at the boats to Italy. It’s easy for me to connect with migrants here, I just need to walk around. I guess I must stand out a lot with my reddish-blonde hair, anarcho-hippy-punk attire and obvious lack of Greekness. I meet a man from Nigeria named Shaggy who, like most other migrants here, wants to go to Italy. Not allowed to stay and not allowed to leave either – the situation in Patras reminds me a lot of Calais. Shaggy asks for my phone number. I’m reluctant at first, but give it to him. He’s going to Athens for a day, but wants to call me when he gets back. I tell him sure he can call me and we can meet up, but in no way is he to think of this as anything other than friendship… EVER! He says of course, no… but he never calls. Was I too harsh?

It’s an interesting exercise to walk about in a meditative state, be aware of how all this attention brings a fear up in me, an urge to close down and erect boundaries. I concentrate on breathing, relaxing, opening to it as much as I can, but it’s hard.

Walking up the big steps to the castle, I’m followed by a sly looking man. He’s looking at me in a way I don’t like and it makes me impatient so that I turn to him and demand “what!?!” He smiles and slinks back to his friends, but one of them comes over. I’m not happy about this, but the man is much politer than his friend. “May I sit with you?” he asks. I reluctantly agree and he sits and chats with me a while. This man is polite, unintrusive and his eyes have a sparkle. His name is the Moroccan version of ‘Jesus’, so I take to calling him that instead. We discuss migrant problems, languages – of which he speaks a few – and the country he has come from, which he obviously loves. I ask why he came here – “It’s a big story!” Ah yes, it always is. He doesn’t want to tell me and I don’t push. Jesus tells me in the two months since he arrived, I’m the second (presumably non-sans papiers migrant) who has spoken with him. There’s a lot of racism here. Like all the others, Jesus doesn’t want to stay here, he wants to go to Italy – then up to Belgium, to England, to Canada… it’s a big dream. This guy has confidence, more than most others. I wonder if it will see him through.

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Sma and I go to meet a girl I found on CS, an anarcha-hippy like me. Silena takes us to a squatted social centre, Perasma (“passage”), then to a Greek bar with live music where we drink “Rakomelo” – flaming hot sweet alcohol, with her friend Christos.

Perasma

Rakomelo

 

The squats here seem more open than in Athens. We go to the weekly Kafeneio (cafe) in Perasma, and another in Maragopouleio – the squatted house, recently evicted and then re-occupied. We go to the latter with Yorgo, another CSer who Sma stayed with last time she was here. He’s been hosting her winter boots and coat ever since.

I meet Jesus again two days later in Persma. He’s with some friends and I go over to say ‘hi’ and invite him to sit with us. I’m with Yorgo and some other “comrades” (they use that word a lot here) from the other squat. One guy, Dimitris, persuades me that I absolutely have to go and listen to Rebetiko music in another cafe. Jesus and his overly-smiley friend come with us. The friend is constantly looking at me, flashing his teeth. I feel uncomfortable, but smile back. Jesus himself is as respectful as before.

I laughed when Dimitris said I’d be out half the night – I’m usually in bed by midnight. But he’s right and it’s 5am by the time I get in the door, waking Sma who was already asleep. How did time fly? Maybe something to do with the kiss I shared with a Greek comrade, my first in three months.

view from the castle steps

Patras from the park

distant snowy mountains

Budapest

I cross town on my bike, through heavy traffic, over the bridge and up into the hills. Up and up and up. If I didn’t already know I was in Buda, I would have recognised it immediately from the introduction to the couchsurfing wiki about Budapest:

“If you walk uphill in a street flanked by harsh green trees and you haven’t encountered any means of public transport in the last 20 minutes, you are on the Buda side. If you walk on the same distance from sea level for a while in a street filled with cars, buses, trolleybuses and trams and haven’t encountered any kind of vegetation in the last 20 minutes, you are on the Pest side.”

I’m staying with a couchsurfer named Eva, possibly the only Hungarian anarcha-feminist in Budapest. I am very pleased to have found her and she is very nice, if a little shy. I am her first couchsurfer. The day after I arrive Eva takes me into the centre of Pest by tram. She had a cycling accident a while ago and can’t use her bike yet. Neither of us is used to paying for trams, so we don’t. Unfortunately, there is a controller onboard. Apparently this is impossible as it’s a weekend and Eva has never seen them on this line before, but still, here he is. Eva tries to get me off the tram unseen, but it’s no use. We are marched off and onto the platform. We also have the only ticket controller who can speak English, which is a shame as apparently they usually don’t bother with you if you are English. Eva tries to argue with him in Hungarian and I try to plead my case in English. He asks for my ID which I stupidly give him, then he wants 4,000 forinds to give it back. No way. He threatens to call the police. We look at each other for a long time. Eventually he gives it back and we leave quickly. Ha. We calm our shakey nerves in a tea shop.

Budapest used to be two (well, three, but nobody talks much about Obuda) cities: Buda and Pest, growing out of settlements on opposite sides of the bank of the Danube. At one time people crossed from one to the other via boat or a pontoon bridge, but after some Count had to wait a week to cross when the river froze, he pledged a whole year’s wages to build a permanent bridge. Now there are seven. Eva tells me Budapest is too big a city, too big for a country the size of Hungary. Hungary used to be a lot bigger, but it chose the wrong side during the second world war and lost a lot of land. This is what the Hungarian National History Museum says: “it chose the wrong side“. Makes it sound like whoops, could have happened to anyone, as opposed to admitting that the state sided with Hitler. The old Hungary on maps looks to me like a whale. You can see the whale on t-shirts sometimes, an easy way to spot a fascist. They have a taxi company too with the whale on the side of the cars.

On the Budapest Wiki page on couchsurfing.org it says the city is in the post-dogshit-everywhere and pre-starbucks-everywhere age, which sounds quite nice, but I saw an awful lot of dog shit on the pavements and it’s easy to see Starfucks aren’t far off. One thing I’m learning is that capital cities are all alike. They have differences too, of course, but still there are those same shops, big shiny office buildings, concrete slab apartments and blend of extravagance and luxury with absolute poverty.

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It’s raining in Budapest. Rain doesn’t suit this city and it doesn’t suit my new-to-me panniers, bought from a girl from couchsurfing in Berlin. She said they were waterproof. They are not. Not at all. Good thing I only paid 15 Euros, not the 20 I was going to give before I saw them. I will have to take a lot of plastic bags with me when we go cycling.

I cross the city in all it’s sogginess, down from the top of Buda mountain and into the traffic chaos of Pest. Sam and I had a mile-a-minute-natter of a catch-up and went out to dinner at the frankly amazing vegan Hungarian restaurant two nights ago. Now her friend Helen has gone back to the UK after her two week holiday cycling here with Sam from Vienna and I am here for the shift-change.

I have moved to Pest, where the traffic is greater and the countryside less, but I don’t have to climb a mountain on my bike at the end of every day and am less likely to be hassled by ticket inspectors. I have left Eva behind, but fortunately the people in the new flat are amazing. Here Peter, Chonghee and Tomash live in a flat they share with a constant stream of couchsurfers. They are possibly the friendliest and most hospitable people alive. Peter is often telling us we are welcome back whenever we like – to visit, to stay for a while, or if we want a home in Eastern Europe. We don’t need to ask – just tell them we are coming and they will make sure there is space.

Round the corner from the flat is Tuzrakter – the closest thing in Budapest to a social centre and also home to the Infoshop, which sadly isn’t really functioning at the moment. What they do have though is a once a month event in Tuzrakter by the Infoshop people. This Thursday it will be about squatting and Peter wastes no time in roping his couchsurfers in on the action. Sam and I will lead a discussion about land squatting and tree-sitting and another CSer, steph who is living in Copenhagen, will answer questions after the film, which happens to be about Ungdomshuset.

Sam and I manage to coble together a workshop, which seems well received with lots and lots of questions from people who can’t believe you can really live in trees and are amazed at some of our stories. Unfortunately when it comes to Hungarian law, we don’t have a clue and can only advise people to find out for themselves. Suddenly I am feeling very blessed for things like the ASS in England; activists who have created a real tradition in the UK during the road protest movement and all of those land-rights geeks. The people here are really starting from scratch.

We have a drink to celebrate, which is a bit of a rarity for both me and Sam these days. We both used to be real drinkers, but have been on and off the wagon in tandem these past couple of years. In general, we both prefer to feel healthy and not drink, but somehow tonight we are up for it. Sam spends the entire next day paying for it, being sick every five to ten minutes in a bucket up by our mezzanine bed throughout the day. Finally she can stand it no more. With no reply on the phone to the supposedly 24 hour doctors, Tomash and I go out to find her a doctor. Tonight is the Night of Tat. It’s probably not called that, but that’s what I prefer to call it. On every street in every direction, people are throwing out huge piles of everything they have been hoarding up for the past year and have now decided to throw away. There are sofas, beds, table and chairs. There are blankets and cushions, pots and pans, lamps and suitcases. There are clothes and coats, scrap metal, bits of wood.. The first time I go out I pick up a rug and a washing-up bowel for the flat. The second time I find a toaster, but am busy getting Sam the cola she thinks will make her feel better and it’s gone by the time I return. When Tomash and I go out to find the doctor, I return with the most beautiful jumper in the world and he gets himself a bed, but later abandons it because he says it smells funny.

The doctors surgery looks completely closed, until we ring the doorbell. Then the lights come on and suddenly people are there. Hmm.. strange. They tell us the doctor will be there in half an hour, which she is. She thinks it’s a virus, not alcohol poisoning. Apparently a lot of people have it. Sam gets a jab in the bum from a middle-aged male nurse who speaks to her like she’s a pig and I feel very sorry for her. Poor poorly Sam.

We have to stay even longer for Sam to recover. Peter already tempted us into staying longer than planned for a “feminist bike workshop”, which later turned out to be a “woman’s bike workshop” – an altogether and entirely different thing, held in a museum as part of an exhibition. We also stayed longer to see the exhibition by three more couchsurfers staying in the flat. They all flew here from Finland and have friends flying in from all over Europe to come too. Sam and I both find this difficult. We have both done anti-aviation activism and are trying our best not to blurt out our feelings about it. Things are made worse when we see the exhibition, which consists of the three girls wearing black dresses, twirling black ribbon around the “audience” and then drawing on a big piece of paper on the wall in lipstick.

Fortunately an earthquake in Iceland sparks up some more open conversations about the flying issue and everyone ends up having to find alternative means of getting home. The revenge of Gaia. We are thrilled. Even the Finnish girls are happy in the end.

Before we leave, Peter has something else to ask me. He has found my blog and asks if I would consider blogging for a new English-speaking Hungarian Indymedia which is just starting up. As far as I know the site isn’t live yet and I’m a little unsure of myself in this territory, but I’m definitely up for it and very flattered at being asked

Unfortunately I never got to see the squat that is currenlty being worked on, but we did leave a small pile of things for the Free Shop. Chonghee showed us some photos and it looks like it will be a good place. They have been collecting food from markets for the opening party next week. Dumpster diving is hard here, but the people in the flat have an arrangement with people in at least one market and can go there for unsold food. I’m realising that though Eastern Europe is cheaper than, you do have to actually pay for things, making it more expensive for people like us – especially when you have to buy your new shiny white women’s touring saddle twice because some arsehole nicks it when you forget to take your bike inside for the night!

Purple sky in Pest

Budapest has some very grand buildings

Parliament

Fascist Taxi

Is this what a woman is: lipstick, iron, mascara..?

Caged birds=bad

Bizarre statue

View from Citadel

How depressing, it goes on forever!

P, C and T’s Courtyard

Our mezzanine bed

Chonghee

Art Show

Exhibition

(ism)

Hang on..this stuff is useful!

Tat Night Picnic

Man sleeps on couch

He jumped into my picture!

My bike in Buda

Danube – we’ll be following you soon…