Diaries of a Road Warrior

Waking early, Walter and I discussed the things in Rotterdam I should see and we quickly arranged for me to rent a bike and cycle around central for some great footage. The only problem was 10 minutes later despte his directions, I was completely lost in Walters suburb. I wandered for a long time and became in awe with the citys layout. Random chaotic waterways everywhere you turned. Moots for houses and forgotten streams. And the houses themselves were so different to each other. Eventually I got bored and managed to find my way back to the flat and immediatly felt guilty for neglecting this beautiful city. So after a quick lunch I went back out again in a completly new direction. This time in search of shops to explore despite it being Easter Sunday. Instead I ended up on a stone sculpted island in a man made lake basking in the sun for the afternoon.

upon returning to Walter's his flatmates Duke and Tiina had returned fro m Amsterdam. Both were prominent members of the site, Duke a CS Ambassador from Mexico and Tiina a Finiish lass who was a CS event organiser. I had a fantastic evening in thier company getting drunk on Kanon beer and filming Walter's hilarious cooking whilst Duke and Tiina talked about thier CS experiences. The evening slowly sank into oblivion after a bout of icecream and episodes of QI and of course, more Kanon beer.

I awoke to a cloudy morning and enjoyed a traditional Belgium breakfast with fresh pasteries Koen had gone and bought. They helped me make tw signs as the journey would require a freeway change. I was originally supposed to have gone to Eindhoven but my couch there had cancelled so I decided to head to Rotterdam a day early, calling and leaving a message with my host there in advance. I went and bought some grapes at the market then Koen dropped me off on Antwerps on ramp where 3 other hitchers were already gathered. We had a good chat before trying to hitch. It was hilarious to see all 4 of us in a line, each only about 30 meters apart. Yet we all got quick rides and my driver took me onto the direct road to Rotterdam stopping at a service station. I was there for about 30 minutes without any luck eating my grapes. Then I crossed over to the roadside and shortly after I got a ride from 2 Armanians called Viktor and Edward. Ed spoke no English so Vicktor translated. They were from Armania but had been living in Holland playfully calling it the Holy-Land. The stereo gave me a taste of Armanian music and I told in great detail about thier customs and a mountain considered Holy called Arra-Rat.

They dropped me off just outside of Rotterdam and I was immediatly picked up by Claudia who was picking up a hitch hiker for the first time. She took me to Alexander station and from there I followed easy directions to Walter, my hosts house. He was suprised to see me a day early despte my message but was happy to accomodate me. I told him about my trip plans and he, deciding I needed the money, offered my 20 euros for hovering and washing his floors. I accepted, it just shows to go you never know what will happen in the next 10 minutes, let alone 10 hours.

Later we talked for a long time and watched 'The Departed' over pizza. That night a friend of Walters came over and we spent the evening drinking beer in the cool evening air.

The day didn't start well, thanks to my water intake the night before I woke up around 2am desperate for the toilet but with no desire to creep down 3 flights of croaky old stairs to the ground floor toilet and make my host think i was up to something. So I used my water bottle.

In the morning I awoke to pitch black darkness, I finally realised the windows were blocked out and I simply hadn't noticed the night before. I spent the morning learning to use a french keyboard to contact folks and let them know I was okay. I went out briefly and walked around the block or two (convientantly disposing of my afore mentioned water bottle). Then it was time for me to go. Benoit dropped me off at a service station just on the out skirts of Calais and in hindsight I wish I'd listened to his advice and stayed there. After 30 minutes of disappointment I decided to move onto the onramp and after a while longer I decided to actually hitch on the motorway. In my search for a decent layby for traffic to pull in at I walked along the fields by the motorway for a good half an hour, sweating and exhausted before finding such a spot.

But the police soon pulled over and sent me packing back to the service station ÓN FOOT'the bastards. When I finally arrived at the road leading into the station, utterly shattered I half heartedly raised my Ántwerp'sign as it drove away and the guy stopped for me. The driver was a builder from Belgium called Stef on his way home from work to take his pregnant wife to have a scan to reveal the baby's gender. It was also pay day. Suffice to say he was a very happy chap. We talked alot, he gave me a cigerette on entering which relaxed my body tremendously, then he gave me another for later and bought us both beers. He told me how it was custom here to buy an egg when poor and go knock on a door, the owner would then trade the egg for something like a loaf of bread. I don't think i'll have time to try it on this trip but its things like this that interest me. High on the cigerette and beer I wandered off the overpass i was dropped off at and walked 1/2 a mile to another pullover point where a guy quickly picked me up and took me to a better spot. He also tried to get me mentioned on radio to increase my chances of being picked up. But I never found out if he succeeded as I got a ride real fast. It was from either the craziest or smartest person ever. To quote him 'I am smarter than Einstien'. He talked at great length about fate amd human perseption and how the world would end in 2012.

He dropped me off at a service station near Antwerp. By now the sun was setting and I was worrying about night hitching but I soon met Stevie from Gent off to Antwerp to see his girlfriend. He was a friendly normal bloke who knew about CS!!! From his and from locals he talked too I was able to take the Metro Tram to Mersen for free!!! After a change I was able to go in the right direction to the resturant my host for the night owned. But no one knew the street and eventually a lovely young couple I asked for directions outside an icecream parlour offered to drive me there. We eventually foundit 8 1/2hrs ater I had left Calais.

I immediatly got to film a Gamba Shrimp dish being prepared. The chef explained to the camera very wel I thought. Hopefully the footage will come out well. I then arranged to come back around mid-night when the resturant closed and found a MacDonalds which sadly I found comforting. I think I'm a little culture shocked.

Koen and his partner took me on a midnight tour of Antwerp's oldest district in the city and we had a quaint little pub we drank at, with me drinking dark Belsh beer. I had alot of fun with them and we talked at great length about CS and what we hoped to get out of the community. For them it was a quirk, for me a lifeline.

The 8 hour bus journey to Dover port started with my mother screaming
"Luke it's 6 o'clock"
My bus left at 20 past. Luckily I managed to change my ticket to a 7am departure and still reached Dover by 3pm. Sign in hand. I had intended to start the journey with a bang, hitching onto a ferry but there were no laybys and i ended up talking to a strange man dressed in army fatigues, apparently an army man on holiday. He convinced me to buy a ticket, partly because I wanted to get away from him.

The view of those craggy white cliffs as we floated free of the port was quite spectacular, a view I shared with a man sitting next to me called Diego. An italian living in Lillie with his wife. We discussed the many varying languages and dialects of Europe and the trip passed swiftly along. We hung out leaving the ferry together where we discovered a rather long wait for a bus and no taxis to Calais's center. So we teamed up with a Swiss and German pair and wandered in search of life in this quiet little city.

We eventually reached a train station and I contacted my first CS host Benoit. Parting ways with Diego with promises to keep in touch, Benoit took me on a sight-seeing and history tour of little Calais as I've come to call it.

We eventually arrived at his beautiful 19th century 4 story house where I was treated to dinner and the delight that is Mylene Farmer, one of France's most famous yet enigmatic singers. Benoit showed me a dvd of her latest concert in Paris and although it was all sung in French it proved to be a very entertaining show to watch. So I finish today with a sense of satisfaction and a confidence in the days to come.

And though she wore but satin lace and held the shadow of midnight moonbeams on her lips, the name of Love was nought but whispered and left a darkened bruise upon my heart where pain shall forever curl.

So many say that words are cheap, that happiness and love are but mere parlour tricks, yet I never dreamed a sweeter kiss than that of Hamlet's fair Ophelia.

Vanilla dreams confound my thoughts, where serenity seems to have a chance, but I shall never breathe the scent of fair Orpheus's rose. Instead I stumble and crawl upon the bleeding rocks of my sanity praying for a kiss that is but the simple honey taste of Romeo's true love and its happy ever after.

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Composed right after I saw 'Vanilla Sky' the other day. I thought Tom Cruise was a shit actor till I saw this movie.

Hombres, Senyorita's (bad spelling?), ma liddle chiwawa's, gather to da circle and ere da news.

I may be moving to Germany, I may be joining the civil service.

More to come or not soon.

I skipped college today after somehow utterly making a fool of myself for the last 2 hrs at college on thursday. I just slept and woke and thought. I know that this is just me being depressed talking but I just...right now I'd be willing to taste my death. Morbid sorry :P My mother called, she was abrumpt like I was scum, I should have never started talking to her again. Said Paul would call to discuss a job after 6. Paul never called. They are playing mind games with me, I wont be pushed around anymore. I'm not some fucking chess piece in a game of chess. My sister called tonight, I eventually mentioned the accident on monday. She's really worried, I tried to tell her its no big deal, I just want her to leave me alone, I think she might really keep to her word and come visit me this time.

If your reading this, whoever you are...why do I feel like no one can hear my soul?

No one really understands who I am, what I want, what I hide!

I'm going to try to break that mold :)

I read a story many many years ago about a creator god called Ra;

Ra was known by many names to his people and children, but no one knew his true name, the name of his soul, for that name was the key to his being. Those that knew it had power over Ra, they had him at thier command. Ra had two children in particular, Isis and Orisis, a couple who were powerful gods. Now Orisis wanted Ra to ascend back to the heavens and leave the realm of mortality so that he could rule it. His sister and wife Isis wanted this also. Now Isis was said to be a powerful sorceress; one day she devised a plan to trick her father into revealing the God-Kings secret name. She fashioned a snake out of clay and poured her own blood onto it before giving the snake life. Then she hid the snake whose venom was her blood in a garden in which Ra took his morning walks. That next morning Ra passed through the garden until the snake confronted him. As Ra was the creator god he could control all animals, but this snake was not of his own creation and so it struck him and poisened his mortal body. As Ra lay on his death bed the world mourned and his children came to him. In the final moments it was Isis who offered Ra the chance to save his mortal form. If he told her his secret name she could rid him of the poisen, saving the body. Ra told her and so Isis learnt the secret name of Ra. She cast the poisen from his body and commanded her father to hand down the crown of the gods to Orisis. Ra would retire to the Sun-Boat, and rule from the heavens whilst his son ruled from the earth.

My soul name is Dygash Ashenone. My soul is open and free from chains of mortality becuase I believe that if I do not keep the name a secret then it will lead to a more interesting life. Who knows the madness of my mind right? And where did he make up such a silly name like that? Looney! Crackpot! Dygash!

make what you will of the story and/or the name. My parents named me Luke, something else called me Dygash. I'm a whim of fate. Even if I'm unsure of its existance. I don't want to believe and yet I do, relief and satisfaction are conflicting interests.

In essence I consider my greatest skill is that I'm a skeptical of absolutly everything. In some cases that can lead me to be paranoid and an obbsessive compulsive, but I have a degree of control over these mental tools. I call them tools because my controlling them I can make them an advantage and not something that hinders me.

My second skill is that I am an extremely creative individual. I can create some fantastic songs and poems on the spot, think up story concepts in a second that are so complex they rival some of the better works out there. Think me arrogant but I'm confident that I'm being truthful. To be honest alot of this comesfrom being slightly dyslexic and autistic. Ouch I might regret revealing those little facts. The autism isn't confirmed.

I suffer alot. I'm been in some pretty horrific situations in the last 21 years. I've seen my mother abused by my father, I've been bullied at school to such a degree that at one time kids chased me through a forest throwing stones at me till I hid in a nettle bush. I've attempted suicide, been kidnapped, taken drugs, lived on the streets and starved. Thats alot worse things that havent happened to me for which I am eternally thankful. Somehow I've come out of these situations better than when I went in. It's like everytime I hit a terrifying low I come out of the situation and experience a euphoric high. I definatly have a ying/yang lifestyle and believe in something called the Law of Three (google it if you dont know what it is) That means I must have a spiritual quality to my life. I certainly do but I have a strong belief in science to compensate. I believed in the super string theory before I even read about it. I believe theres energy on this planet for whatever reason that we are emotional or intellectual individuals can inflence. An easy way to explain is the butterfly effect, you know 'A butterfly flaps its wings in Japan causing a hurricane in Mexico. apply that at an atomic level and I believe that positioning a simple atom in a certain way influences the atomic structure of, if not the universe then certainly, the planet. Science is constantly growing and developing and thankfully it quantifys alot of my spiritual beliefs, so I have a reverence in science. I think of it as the truth of faith. A reward of believing in something. I believe that if someone refuses to trust science then they are weak (I'm sorry for my explicit views and any offence they cause). I read an article the other day that the Pope was trying to negate Limbo, the ethereal plane between Heaven and Hell. How the fuck can you get rid of a spiritual plane? Doesn't that say I do not believe in the beliefs I stand for? Its fucking hypocrisy! Gah...lack of punctuation here!

And breathe...thats all for now, do comment if you'd like to!

Dygash )o(

So i'm at college, pah, its too fucking easy!

heres the challenge, the adventure? Made one or two sorta friends. I'm too out of place here, I had hoped I'd fit in, my second chance, fuck!

passed out on monday and was taken to hospital, exactly the same as in Feburary! Not happy, very nasty bruise/burn on my face from the fall, unlike last time i was on a sidewalk instead of in the shower!

Wish things were more fun, life just is not fun! I have no family to relate to and no one in all honesty that I can relate to naturally. Hmm I'm going to do a poem, this is on the spot live and focused guys. I'm jittery on coffee hence this snappy post!

There was a man called Luke, he liked to cook and provoke intellectual folk!
unhappy with social structures and those who think they...


Fuck it, the muse isnt with me today. I'm usually very good, my friend andrea once called me a writer when i met her friend. That had a profound impact on me as I'd never thought of myself as that sort of breed.

Marx sums up how I feel, everyone is creative but without mental production your fucked!

I HAVE NO MENTAL PRODUCTION i want to write to explain the turmoil and sheer force of creativity in my soul but everytime i start i feel its not worth it. I'm a black hole in cyberspace. No one ever heeds my call for help.

Help me!

In all the spirals I have turned, peace of mind my common urge.

Dygash

p.s.

Andrea dont give me one of your grasshopper lectures, it will annoy me further!


Arrogance is a sin that i revel in ¬

Yep i finally did it, it may not sound like it but i spent 14hrs sitting in front of audacity solid. Probably longer actually...feel free to post comments about the episode here. There are things i've already noticed in my first listening as mp3 that i screwed up namely the IDE tags :S Dunno how that happened have to check when i wake from my big nap i'm gonna take in a minute. On a plus side the mp3 is playable online from the site, something i had not expected but was pointed out by my friend Corinne, you rock girl. Please comments on the show good or bad or tips here or email them too me :)