Strasbourg, France

Poliisi pidätti sata Naton vastustajaa Strasbourgissa

Kuokkavieraat aloittivat NATOn juhlakokouksen mielenosoituksilla

Clashes at NATO summit

Along with these news, I publish my rant I wrote on the way here.
Enjoy.




Wednesday 1st April, or Tuesday 31st March (depending on what time you look at...)

It might be almost one o'clock in the night, or getting near midnight. Depends how you look at the time here, really. I'm myself a bit confused with the time, I think my computer's in Finnish time and everything else is in German or Swedish time. Anyhow, it's the second day of traveling or the first, again depending how you look at it. On Monday the 30th we began our journey in Turku, boarding the ship that goes between Turku and Stockholm. In the harbour, at the terminal we met our traveling companions. Most of them unknown, only a handful of people we knew beforehand. Exciting, the feeling when you meet new people. Introducing one another, handshakes, names. All that. You get this nervous feeling that you'll hurt someone's feelings by forgetting a name or so, but it's natural I guess – if you don't pay any attention, or not much attention.
The night on the ship went well, or without any larger complications actually. We drank lots, got to know each other, had fun. The ship swayed and the music was loud. Lots of different people on the boat. It's weird how things like these bring people of different backgrounds together. For example, we saw a group of Canadians – at least we think they were Canadians – and some Italians and crazy Swedes. Odd people. So at night we went discoing, hung around various hallways and talked. Talked a lot, about things that really didn't matter and things that did matter. Differing matters. After all this, we went to bed and got something like two hours of sleep. I even lose count myself, because I was at loss with the difference between Finnish time and Swedish time, since we'd just switched to daylight savings time.
Day two – or one – started off with a bit of a rushed morning. We woke up at six, or seven, don't know really. I don't even know whether it was supposed to be Swedish or Finnish time. Jetlag? Nah. So I was a bit panicked at first, since I didn't see anyone I knew around, so I rushed in the bathroom to do my morning wash, packed my stuff real fast and hurried off. Outside the terminal we were waiting for the rest to get to the bus, since all of us hadn't gotten there yet. So we were waiting, and were a bit worried about someone being left behind or stuff being lost etc. But in the end we managed to get ourselves together and shit together and picked up a Swede as well.
Day two was planned as following: a long drive from Stockholm to Trelleborg, from where we were to take a ferry to Rostock, Germany. Long drive – meaning around 10 hours in the bus, just sitting around. A good plan indeed, with intended stops for toilet business and smoking and eating and such. But as always, plans are doomed to be flawed, no matter how good the planning or the execution. Something happened that we had not foreseen at all, it came right out the blue. One minute we were driving along a highway, everybody enjoying the view and some beverages and then – BLAM. A sudden loud bang, and that was it. A flat tire. Luckily the tire hadn't gone all the way, so it still had some air and we were able to drive the thing somewhere we could stop. Time for Plan B.
Plan B wasn't much of a plan, as so much of a list of operations improvised. We called the bus' owner (since it was a rental) and we waited around a lot, until we got info on a place that would change our tire. That situation was the most nerve wrecking maybe for some, but for me it was oddly like any other situation. Very much like how Omar and Tuukka were extremely excited about the trip, while I was rather uninterested in a way. It was just another trip, for me. Not such a big deal, but this trip really is. The excitement hasn't hit me yet, and I think it won't. The idea of unattachment has grown on me, I think. But anyhow, when we got our tire changed, we kept on driving, since the biggest thing wasn't the changing of the tire – since that was kind of inevitable – but our schedule since we were supposed to be in Trelleborg before 11 pm in order to catch the Ferry to Rostock.

We've been drinking all day long. Beer, whiskey, booze, long drinks... Pick a poison. And me? I drank a bit less than normally, I don't really feel like dozing off into a deep trance of drunkenness just yet. I think I'm getting sick anyways so not to take any chances before we get to France. But onto the bus ride. We were trying to keep to the schedule as to make the ferry, and fortunately we did. We were a few hours late of our original schedule, which means that we were in Trelleborg around 8 pm, instead of the 6 pm originally planned. In Trelleborg, it was mostly just waiting around again. Sitting in the bus, waiting for the rest of the Swedes to arrive.
After another 2-3 hours of waiting, we're finally on the ferry towards Rostock, the ferry's perhaps a bit prophetically named Tom Sawyer, as if it is a sign of an upcoming adventure. The ship is kind of odd, since I've never been on an actual ferry before. I've always just been on the ship from Turku to Stockholm or Helsinki to Tallinn. We don't have cabins here, so we're just roughing it out in the hallways and lounges. Sleeping on the floor tonight. My ass hurts, sitting on the floor. Thus I conclude the first chapter of the journey “No to war, No to NATO”.

Hai