The spiral is complete!

Funnily on the 12th of April when the Occupy movement worlwide was taking shape into a mass consciousness elevating process for those somehow tuned to it I was happily at home working on the spiral shaped garden following the very sad gathering in Luxembourg. Sad because it was during a huge commercial take over in which a market and flea market were happening at the same time in the city and hoards of people were just passing by without any care in the world other than their own, ego centered concerns. It was not something I planned for to happen on this day but as the universe and human consciousness is a spiral unfolding maybe in that sense my own inner it subconscious spiral was also more active than ever. It was a wonderful day spent cycling and working in the garden with Charlotte, the new person living in the house. We managed to work out a small part of the spiral in the right side of the garden but after so much back and forth in the city by bike it's a job well done:

On Sunday after working in Redange at Katy's place on a project for CELL involving a bike powered washing machine, a solar cooker and seed bombs came back and finished the job again with Charlotte and a bit of unenthusiastic help from Sylvie (both seen on the photo from Saturday above):

I've been feeling a bit sorry for not sticking to a simple dig and destroy technique that most people enjoy so much which would make me seem like such a wonderful gardener but even with the limited time to spend with this garden I couldn't bring myself to do it. I can't simply empty an entire surface, usually rectangular for my own needs alone. I'd rather it stays a bit wild but fertile than completely destroyed from the first year and I maintain my principles. Most gardeners grow food as if they are in a war situation and they can't allow any mistakes to happen so for that reason try to eliminate all factors that might influence their crops, factors that would otherwise be good companions (decomposition, wild growth, fungi). Most gardeners would also have to buy compost to add to their soil the following year after destroying the soil. I would just have to move a few things around even if this was the biggest compromise I could make and a long lasting garden would start in a completely different direction than this. I can hardly say I worked in this garden and I put no money into it yet it will still yield even though the frosts from Sunday or Saturday did do some damage mostly to potatoes coming up and the cucumbers that were planted out. If I was to stay longer I would continue this model with adding the hey from the cut grass in the rest of the garden on the beds for next year which would keep plants from growing in the beds but allow mycorrhiza to develop underground, along with adding compost from my large compost pile (that I would have kept if knowing I would have stayed longer) but also the compost from the municipality which delivers it for free to anyone asking for it in truck loads. Trees and shrubs would be inter-planted allover in the back of the yard to act as wind breakers and extra food producers as well as bio mass for hugel beds, crafts and so on. The evergreen tree would be replanted out of the stone circle which would instead be transformed into a herbal spiral garden large enough to accommodate dozens of edible and medicinal herbs. A small pond and water retaining system along with a compost toilet would work their way in the big garden family of wonderful things.. Oh, the possibilities!

Day on Earth

I had a great time with the new person that arrived in the house, Charlotte today. After returning from a failed spontaneous Free Your Stuff street stand where the occupy group was assmbled in Place D'armes me and Charlotte decided to go for a quick bike ride through the city. This quick ride turned into a fewhours of cycling back and forth in the city with a quick run up to the Mudam with plenty of fun places discovered on the way for trying some jumps like the fortifications at the top of the stairs under the red bridge and the actual area around Mudam. Coming back we hurried to make some pumpkin soup which in the end we decided to make into a delicious puree. During while everything was cooking we went out in the garden and finished one of the circles from the spiral and tomorrow I will plant in it already. A real shame is that I don't think I marked when we planted the potatoes because just today I saw the first ones giving green shoots through the hey. HEY! Great! But I'm sure Lisa will remember when we did that. All I need to remember now is to ask her... Mhm.

Anyway, fun, fun, fun since we (mostly me) also finished a bottle of cider which was simply delicious. It went along great with all the other stuff I cooked on the side like the fries, the pain a chocolat that I found in the freezer. Fun filled day! And such great weather. Wow, today could have been simply terrible because the occupy movement is almost not there in Luxembourg but so much fun on a personal level sometimes is needed to get over the harsh reality of this shithole.

Free Your Stuff Day - impressions 4 days later

On Sunday, 6th of May the first event around the the group Free Your Stuff Luxembourg happened in Dudelange. And it really did seem to happen with no organizing behind. There was very little public participation to making the day a better one for everyone and although I do realize I pick on Luxembourg with every chance I got that is because things really, BUT REALLY need work on the social skills level. You know, sometimes you go to a place and it looks a mess but it works and there is no bad feelings involved with being there because the people are involved into making the place work for everyone. That might involve not having it as clean as a hospital room but perfectly amazing and inpirational. Such a place was the Mezcal squat in Torino that I never got to write about also maybe because the impressions were so strong after spending time in money centered Luxembourg that I was overwhelmed. Even as I write this people on the Free Your Stuff group in Luxembourg air their opinion that a world without money is just not possible something I beg to differ but which takes allot of energy that I consider wasted as it could go to planting cucumbers or zucchini outside. Hmm.. Luxembourg, you're a rare beast.

I miss Tom

Message from Tom:
Hi again Radu,
Im afraid that even though i'm back in Wales at the moment, i'm still living out a rucksack miles away from home and all my books. I cant remember any specifics like authors or publishers. Most of my favourites were dusty old second-hand hardbacks with yellowing pages. The best i can offer you now is some of the websites i have been referencing a lot on my gardening travels.
-Look up on Youtube.. Geoff Lawton, Frank Cook, Martin Crawford, Robert Hart, Masanobu Fukuoka, Paul Stamets..
-Plants for a Future (PFAF) is an excellent website for wild food info.
Hope thats a good enough start. My best advice would be to learn what 'wild' foods are the best edibles, and 'cultivate' those. One nettle leaf probably contains as much nourishment as a whole commercial lettuce. Other greats are chickweed, dandelion, cleavers, mallows, the mustard family.. loads more.
Also, companion planting is really important for overall garden health. My favourite 'herb doctors' are chamomile, yarrow, valerian, foxgloves, nasturtiums, dill. They randomly self seed every year, i always let a few grow on.
Happy gardening,
Tom

Outer pointing spiral garden

Yesterday I finished the outer pointing arrow part of the outer pointing spiral garden.:)) Together with Lisa got to plant some carrots, leeks, beets, parsley, salads, radishes and sun flowers in the beds. Next to come would be the rest of the spiral but today am not feeling as motivated as yesterday.

But here is a preview of how it should look like when I do get the motivation to finish it:

 Digging by myself is not one of my favourite things to do while with some company it is so I will either wait until I get motivated to do it by myself or for some company. The red inner half circle should be a raised bed as well so would appreciate some help with carrying and moving the earth around.

La Multi Ani Natalia!

Yesterday on Natalia's birthday me and Lisa went to meet her. It turned out than even though I have just met Natalia for the first time the previous day we were already her only two guests. She treated us to some amazing food after which we went in search of some bear's garlic or bärlauch in the nearby village, Erpeldange. She lives in Ettelbruck. On the Erpeldange castle grounds she had a tip that there would be bear garlic around. After searching everywhere for it we found it as we were preparing to leave, picked some that we already placed in a jar with oil for removal in 3 weeks at which time the oil should have taken all the flavour, vitamins and minerals of the bärlauch. I'm looking forward to that!

WARM WEATHER!

After an April as if spent underwater here in Luxembourg an incredibly warm weather came in that me and Lisa can barely belief is real. It's a real spring day but after those months of cold and rain it feels as a summer day. So great. Am now curious if the frost period will still come in May....

Garden on my mind

With lots of things growing by the window sill (not as many as I would have liked though, many having not sprouted at all and being on the second try now) I am now more and more excited about planting outdoors soon and abotu seeding anew indoors. Today Alex also gave me two seeds of Borago Officinalis or in short Borage which he got from his volunteering place in Belgium. He also gave me the contact for the place which is a seed bank of sorts and can be found here: www.seedsite.eu I am considering spending some time there as well in autumn maybe helping with collecting seeds and other jobs.
He also gave me an awesome tip about starting seedlings in a egg carton which can than be placed directly in the ground as can be seen here: http://www.instructables.com/id/easy-seed-starter./?ALLSTEPS

Today inspired by this photo

 I did something that I will probably have to remove eventualy and that is planting in the actual gutter of a small roof. But because of it's small size maybe it won't be needed afterall. Will check how it all goes and decide on the way. I planted mint, salad and ruccola in there:

And a bad day. Period.

Yesterday was a horrible day having to deal with people's fears and preconceived ideas of which if interested to go over you can try to fill your spirit with hate, anger and sadness by reading at the end of this message. But today I made the choice to stay away from that and went for a very long bike trip with a woman from Poland that works here. We went all around Bambesh, which is forested area in Luxembourg city, very similar to a large park as the trees are either planted or very neatly arranged. But the things we tried with the mountain bikes were quite challenging and a first for me. Such as going up hill and very down hill at speed and learning a few quick tips on how to take a turn (called cornering), how to turn around on a narrow path, how to go up a steep hill and the possibilities of going down hill.
1. cornering as it was explained to me works when one shifts the weight of the body on the opposite side of the direction of turning pushing with the knee against the frame of the bike as it turns towards the ground and by having the opposite arm to the direction of the turn bent and flexible controling the bike. The position of the body even if the bike is slanted is always vertical and this technique will allow for fast turns.
2. turning on a narrow path involves practicing turning in a figure eight around two objects on the ground and  by using the figure eight's center as a visual aid. When one wants to turn it's important to twist the body first in the direction of the turn and leave the bike to follow and looking at the desired destination helps in doing that at first. But the most important is the twist of the body.
3. going up hill on steep terrain can be possible if one distributes the weight in a equal ammount on both wheels as to not have them get of the ground. If too much is in the front the back wheel loses traction while too much in the back and the front wheel comes of threatening to tip you over. A good technique is to stay seated in the saddle and do as if biting the handlebars as in put the whole weight of the upper body towards the front.
4. I did some crazy downhill action that I would have never imagined I could be able to do and an very happy about this outing in general something to turn the bad previous day into a relaxed one on Sunday.

Sad day for zucchini:(

In the night I guess there was some frost that I was not expecting and now all of the zucchini plants are pretty much gone into a green squeeshy paste. It's such a sad thing to see.:( I will be planting new ones I guess on new moon which should be on the 21st of April and hope for the best with the May frosts that I will have to keep an eye out with the weather. That's what happens when one grows sensitive, tender plants that as privileged europeans now think we can't live without. If I was to be in my own place I would have a green house constructed right next to the house for such special little fellows and leave the rest of the area for hardy perenials and chance tender annuals that would grow from seeds scattered in clay balls.
Oh, and as a little coincidence we had a complete black out in the house here in Beggen that lasted for more than an hour, time in which no lights either in the house or on the streets and time in which the 3 people in the house, Agata, Silvi and Lisa already started panicking and imagining there are people in the house, locking the door and yelling at the smallest sound. Quite a disturbing site...

Best bread ever

I started the morning so well, with such an amazing bread coming out of the over:

It was a great day outside

and I took a little bike ride to the local bike repair shop/ngo/bike rental office where I could not help notice they had a very neat set of tools hanging on the walls:

It all than went downhill when I came inside and started posting on the Free Your Stuff group in relation to whether weapons should be given on the group or not. Pfft....

Free Your Stuff Day preparations

Yesterday I took my time cycling to Dudelange, stoping over to talk to a guy I saw walking on the side of the road. I had dinner with the folks in the house there and stayed over the night and in the morning I filmed the storage area where the Free Your Stuff Day is supposed to happen. I will post a link here as soon as I finish editing the clips together.


After that I cycled back to Luxembourg and recorded the km between the house in Dudelange and the one I am in here in the city and the time it took:

20.30 km in 57 minutes and 57 seconds:)

Necessity is the mother of invention

It's an idiom I don't fully support yet sometimes out of necessity come some wonderful inventions. During Easter I found myself here in Luxembourg with no vegetables or much of anything to eat. So I just used what I did have:
quinoa, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, koriander powder and macadamia oil. And today I made it again as a treat since I like it so much. I boiled half a cup of quinoa in a cup of water for about 8 or 9 minutes along with garlic and ginger added after about 5 minutes after the quinoa. At the end of the 8 or 9 minutes of boiling I added soy sauce and a half spoon of koriander powder and left everything to sit on the plate that was not turned off for 5 more minutes. Now as the plate is cooling down I will add the macadamia oil which is the secret ingredient that brings it all together in a delicious meal. I am waiting for it to cool so as not to destroy the vitamins and other beneficial things in the oil. Makes no sense to have expensive cold pressed oil if you are going to do the distructive heat processing yourself. I am eating it right now actually and it's MMM!

Fur Free Frankfurt! And DON'T FUCK the police!

Saturday the biggest anti fur demo in Germany took place in Frankfurt where still many fur shops exist in this day and age. The demo had everything a demo would, from banners to black clad folks and the riot police dressed to impress. It only missed the rocks going through the windows of the reprsentatives of an exploitative industry, namely the fur industry which is even sick to be called as such. It's more than an industry and just business, it's millions of lives that are taken every year for the sole reason of improving the social status of a few arrogant individuals. Alas, here is a link to the platform which called people to action with a good turn out: http://www.frankfurt-pelzfrei.de

I returned back late in the night to find I had no internet connection so all the mails that piled up in the one day I was away had to wait until the next day. I even missed a meeting because lacking internet since now I don't even have a phone anymore. But today between replying mails and writing this and other messages I had the time to dig a bit in the garden and plant 9 zucchini and 3 salads along with 7 brussels sprouts and a mullen plant that I found on the way back from my trip in seach of free wi fi (which I eventually managed to get from a restaurant that gave me their password). I'm curious how they will deal with the night frosts that still go on a bit. I will wake up early in the morning tomorrow just to check on them.

The other planting I should start doing is of projects I want to be involved in the future. I now am pretty set on going to Peru and for that I should write a small draft project description and contact Sandra for coordination after which presenting the project to ASTM, the local company that deals with mining in 3rd world countries. They did me wrong by not acception my offer to include Rosia Montana in their organisation's agenda just because it's not in the 3rd world so I'm curious if this new proposal of mine will find them in a better mood. But I should start NOW if I want to get anything done.

P.S. and why I wrote "DON'T FUCK the police"? Because it seems there are quite a few of them undercover for years, starting relations, having sex and even getting activists pregnant so no don't fuck the police, just find them and point them out as useless and even more so detrimental to anything to do with the evolution of society.

Message in regards to EVS

Dear friend,

I will take this opportunity not to only write you but to make a page on which others that would be interested can find information in regards to the European Voluntary Service that I finished some months ago in an organisation working within a free radio station in Luxembourg.

I'm sure this is mentioned somewhere on a hidden EVS page but EVS is NOT unpaid work and should not be a substitute for paid work which is usually routine and presenting no challenge. EVS should be a tool for non formal learning so for learning by doing and once you think you know how to do a certain thing you should move on to other tasks. The regular volunteers and the paid staff should deal with the day to day workings of the organisation as you will not be there in 2 or 5 years and should get more of a picture of the culture and people as well as learn something new WHILE you're there. So with that said some organizations offer their volunteers the possibility to join a camp, take up a course other than the language course or simply just take the time to show the volunteer around and integrate him or her into the local life, something which would be the task of the mentor, a person apart from the project coordinator but which doesn't usually work out.

NOW, basically anyone from anywhere in the world, between 18 and 30 can do EVS, once in their life. The two important pillars of starting a project are the sending organization, which could be an NGO from your own country or from abroad that you know and trust and the host organization who is the organization with whom you will be working with in your project. I was lucky to be able to give my input on what I was interested in learning in my project so was able to draw the outline of it with my project coordinator while she had in mind the bigger framework. So if you have a project of your own in mind or an outline of it you can propose it to a host organization (NGO usually) that works on the topic/theme that interests you so that they include it in the project. So alongside the country you should also keep in mind that you don't want to be stuck doing something that you have no relation with for a year and not having anything to fall back on as something that you enjoy doing. Both the two pillars I was mentioning, sending organization and host organization as well as these two important criteria for many people who want to start EVS, country in which to live and theme of the activity can be found at this link: http://ec.europa.eu/youth/evs/aod/hei_en.cfm

Following is a little photo with the basics of this form which seems very complicated at first

What you need to know more is when to apply and when to expect for an answer. At point 15 of these FAQs is a list of application deadlines that even I don't know how to explain. I just applied having no time schedule and waited and never got interested in knowing how it works with the deadlines (who wants to know about a dead anything?!). But maybe you can figure it out: http://ec.europa.eu/youth/youth-in-action-programme/faq-european-voluntary-service_en.htm

You can as well write a national agency asking for more information as well regarding the technical parts of EVS while you can ask ex EVS volunteers for more intimate insight as to how they managed with the project and the conflicts that appear, etc. Here is a list of contacts for some of the National Agencies (NA): http://ec.europa.eu/youth/orphans/contact-list_en.htm#sectNAS

Somehow money is left out many times out of the conversation which is quite a stupid thing from my point of view since these programs run on ALLOT of money going between both the host organization, the sending organization, private insurance companies, travel agencies and so on and so forth so it only seems fair that volunteers know what resources are behind that support them. That way they might appreciate the program even more OR maybe, the one thing that maybe scares most organizations and the EVS program people themselves, the volunteers denying taking part in such a privileged program that leaves so much space for fraud both at the host organization's level but also the bigger more lucrative level of EU funds management. So even though 1% of the EVShttp://ec.europa.eu/youth/documents/programme-guide-2012_en.pdf  Does anyone know of a link where the food money per country list is?

If the language course is an important thing for you is better you write the current volunteers of the organization to ask how many times a week they had courses and how good the courses were. You can write the evs organization to put you in touch with the volunteers before you send out your application by writing them you are interested in sending them in the application and would like to get better informed beforehand. Most serious organizations will appreciate this anyway.

Expect to work for something in between 30 and 35 hours a week with some unfair exceptions of 36, 37 hours in some projects. But this can be settled before as well with the organization. If the volunteers you will contact write you that their project coordinator is challenging and giving them interesting tasks than you can go for broke with 35 hours/week but if they write they mostly do routine work than you can try to go for 30 so you have time for your own projects and time to explore the culture. In most cases, language courses and any other type of training is counted in the work hours. Don't take transit time by public transport as reading or relaxing time since most times even in the most quiet places such as Luxembourg there will be someone either screaming or playing loud music in your ear and the motion of the train even though relaxing if you go for longer trips is not as great for 20 minute hops. I would consider it as work time but it's a grey area I would guess. I do know of a volunteer who was traveling around to promote her organization's project and that was counted as work time as well transport paid both in and outside the country. But there are many exceptions and the best is when one finds an organization in which the boss doesn't see herself or himself as the boss, in which the president is only on paper and where work gets done in a spirit of togetherness and the volunteer is not seen as only a means of income for the organization and their input and personal project as meaningfull (which can be either organising an workshop, photo competition or anything you might think of in relation to the work of the organization with the expenses for it such as snacks for participants, photo frames and printing, etc. , paid by the host organization)

If you have any more questions or points you would like me to reflect on please let me know but also take in consideration the program is being restructured in a very sad way, by cutting the non formal aspect of the program and merging it with more "work market" oriented programs, so similar to an internship.

Frankfurt

Capitalism is shaking and many are putting the shoulder together these days to push against it. Frankfurt is at it's center and on Saturday people from all over Germany and abroad came over to support the local anti capitalist movement. There was a huge demonstration in which both me and Lisa took part but only as passive observers while others organised to send out a clear message against the huge powers that be in Frankfurt: capitalism and it's core idea that money comes before people will face resistance. With police brutality and instigation left and right the participants stayed calm and waited for the police to finish their bluff of holding of the demonstration on account of checking the crowd and we soon continued on out way towards some major centers of European financial power. Yet the police turn out was so great and the security measures to protect the construction site of the new European Central Bank were so strict that none even got close to it. It seemed as if the army itself was taking part with heavy weaponry and armory along with hundreds of police vans and ambulances that were anticipating a massacre and all in the name of protecting the symbols of power of the few.

I took a photo of the route and could check it on the camera yet we didn't need it.

 It was a very inspiring action with the few brushes of reality when demonstrators showed very little discipline and a bit too much obedience and went in a very organised fashion to the local supermarket to fuel up with all kinds of non vegan products that they paid for in full and also the choice of transport for the demo of the organisers, by bus which not everyone could afford. I couldn't so together with my good friend we hitchhiked there from Luxembourg. It was a fun filled hitch which took us 5 hours but without any grief or headaches.

 
Even though we waited for a long time at the hitchhiking spot close to Auchan once we moved closer to the traffic lights where cars were going slower a car stopped for us and the academic couple took us quite close to Frankfurt but a bit loopy so for this reason it took us longer to get there in the end yet the spot was a perfect one and we were soon picked up by ....... (forgot who picked us up in the second car since there were many new people that we met this weekend but waiting Lisa's input on it) As we were dropped of at the next gas station close to Frankfurt three young people that you could tell from far were they were going approached us suspiciously and asked us where we were going and what for. When I mentioned anti capitalist demo one of them said in a super heroish voice "come with us" and that was it for our conversation. In the car they turned up the music and drove fast to the city where they let us out right next to the starting point of the demo. We still had to leave our bags with our couchsurfing host and so we did after taking taking the local transport for which we found it preposterous to pay 2,5 euros in just one direction while in Luxembourg a 1,5 euro ticket lets you travel around the whole country for up to 2 hours. We quickly found our host's place and after taking a breather we were as well buying but just some vegan stuff in the form of falafel from the local small shop just outside our host's place. Frankfurt is definitely expensive when transport and falafel are concerned and again we had to fork out close to 4 euros for a falafel and some other small bread thingy. Then it was all about meeting people in the streets that also share a sort utopic spark of a moneyless society since they were joining an anti capitalist demo. The next day after having a whole beautiful room to our own to sleep in at Silvi's place we were looking around the place that money seems to turn into a surreal picture perfect parallel reality which of course can't be repeated somewhere else because of it's resource intensive needs. Yet we had some good conversations with Silvi and some interesting insights into India where she was traveling for 6 months. Going back on the same day was a bit of a challenge having left from right outside our host's place at a local gas station inside the city. Yet while I was asking in the gas station itself Lisa got the attention of a lady who even turned back for her and still picked us up when I showed up as well. They just drove us to a petrol station outside Frankfurt but from there a truck driver took us 130 km away from Luxembourg. He was quite the friendly type even though probably disagreeing with my association with Lisa having mentioned his daughter's unfortunate "mixture" with an Afghanistan man. I would not be as tempted as him or anyone else to call any type of international and interracial interaction as mixture as that would imply two different groups that so far in my short time on Earth I can not see myself. Traveling does that to people I guess, lifts up the veil of uncertainty and fear of "the others", "the foreigners", "the strangers". But once one insists of keeping this veil on a different type of animal is born and we got to experience it's full fledged potential with the next truck driver that picked us up. I will not go into detail as to how he made the ride seem as a ride with a concentration camp guard since I wish to forget this experience but don't worry it was just his big, fast mouth that made the damage and nothing more.

Lisa besides what the owner sees as his most priced possession and friend and me as the truck from kitsch hell (or heaven if you may).

 Once we were out of his truck and already in Luxembourg we were so tired that I was unable to think of how to get out of the gas station that I once before was in and Lisa was half asleep and a worried that she would not make it to the train station in time for the last train. We didn't have to worry about that though as the 3rd or 4th car driver that I quickly asked to do something about our precarious situation agreed to take us into town. Hurray! It was already 23:25 having left Frankfurt at 5:20 but we were on our way and in the end driven right in front of our entrance door even tough the people were apparently not driving that way. I read now that Lisa is tired and so am I a bit yet I am recovering inside, doing nothing much while she is out there doing her workshops, two of them as well. I will now have to go and try to prepare something nice for her return back home.

Cooking gets better

Yesterday I managed to prepare some really good stuffed peppers by improvising on a Romanian recipe (that I don't know but could only imagine). I replaced the rice with buckwheat and didn't use meat but could have replaced it with some expandable soy. This is how one can cook the buckwheat:4
Wash the buckwheat, bring 2 cups of water to a boil, then add the buckwheat, put on the lid, and turn the heat down. After 15 minutes remove from heat and let sit for another 10 minutes. This will make the buckwheat firmer with a more crunchy texture.

I than fryed half an onion in a pan with olive oil, to which I added some mushrooms after a while. At some point I also added the buckwheat, salt and spices (don't remember which exactly but parsley, black pepper should not miss). I took this mixture and added it to the hollowed peppers which I made sure didn't crack when I took out the stem. Once filled I took the one large tomato we had and made two lids for the two peppers I filled and than placed in the oven at 170 degrees C but turned it up to 200 after a while. They cooked very well even though it took some time (don't remember how long as I didn't time it and just kept an eye on them). It was no problem that I didn't freeze and fry them before as some recipes reccomend.

Today I also cooked allot and along the sour dough bread I also prepared some steamed veggies on which I am now hooked. I just used a metal pasta sifter to hold the vegetables (broccoli, romanesco broccoli and half an onion) which I than placed in a large pot with a lid and water boiling on the bottom of it. After this I put some potatoes and garlic in the oven to bake in some olive oil with salt, paprika and black pepper powder and decided to also make some sauce for the steamed vegetables. I started frying some leek and garlic on top of which I added the rest of the cherry tomatoes I had and after a while added some water with soy sauce to the mix. After letting boil and the liquid to evaporate I added some soy flour to thicken it up.

That's how it all looks like in a plate.

 I'm not sure the sour dough came out well because I might have taken it out a bit too early. I now have a few suggestions to keep in mind when making it though. For this loaf I didn't add white flour but I think a 50% of the flour should be white when making the bread since I have the feeling it's more airy like that. I than also make the dough very liquid these days to the point that it pours into the shape. I of course oil the shape and today I even put some flour on top of that this time just because I saw it on some breads but it's not very visible on mine. I added the salt at the end of the over night process of fermentation just before pouring it in the shape so that the ferments don't get inhibited by it. Today I also added some paprika powder and actually dropped a bit too much in so I'm curious how it came out. Also the temperature of the oven is much higher than what Diego was suggesting to use and what I also used for a long time with bad results from 170 to 200 degrees. Happy bakings!

Questions for a long distance cyclist

Now that I am starting to get a feel for long distance cycling even though 67km is nothing I can still feel "the burn" and it's mostly felt between the cheeks and not the usually freely exposed ones either. So along with the question of WHAT DOES ONE DO ABOUT THOSE NASTY RUSHES ONE MIGHT GET WHILE CYCLING?! I have a couple more questions that I will list bellow and which I will hopefully be able to answer myself as I progress:

°What does one eat on long distance trips? If I am not willing to sacrifice more space for cookware should I than eat raw food? This one is more so sensitive for me since I don't like buying food much so I don't know how well raw food and freeganism go along together. I also don't like carrying much stuff with me.
°How does one avoid accidents such as punctures or other problems both while on the road and before leaving?
°Strong underwear or none at all?:)
...more questions will be posted here as I think of them.

Sunny cycling

Early in the morning I decided to leave cycling in the south of Luxembourg. It was to avoid the encounter with the land lady who was coming to inspect the place for some reason. So waking up at 6:46 and leaving some time around 7:20 I was still quite very sleepy so for this reason I fumbled my way out of the tiny city of Luxembourg. The way going was a bit of a hassle, missing the bike path at a crossroads and taking car routes which are not so pleasant early in the morning. So having stopped quite a few times for the 35 km journey to Linger close to Bascharange from where I wanted to pick up a bike basket from someone that posted it on Free Your Stuff Luxembourg , I decided not to stop at all on the way back for what amounted to approximately 32 km. It worked like a charm even if on some portions it was quite the challenge having to pass car trafficked roads in areas that didn't even have level sidewalks to the road and VERY steep portions of road. I cycled on this path before with Sandra but I also checked the local bike route guide which is outdated but still quite useful. I cycled on the 1, 9 and 6 routes and now got the idea to cycle on all of them if time permits. I could maybe grade them somehow.

On the way towards Linger I saw an old man bent over in a field picking something and being the wild free food aficionado that I am I got of my bike and went over to ask what was it that he was picking. Once he slowly straightened up and I saw what he was holding I could recognise the fresh spring dandelion that he explained is good before the flowers come in. On my return home I saw a few of these in the garden and decided to pick them for a salad. I got a bowl full of them and together with some cherry tomatoes, 1/3 of an onion, salt, olive oil and balsamic vinegar I got a huge bowl of salad to go with the food that Alex already had prepared and shared with me. Delish!

If I could only find some wild garlic to make some pesto now!:(

Bit of cycling for training

Today I woke up early morning with some type of plan of going back to the city. I had the last of my things to either store at my last volunteer program coordinator, Sandra or to take with me. I was considering going by train but than when she suggested that she could take the most of what I had to carry by car on Monday we made another plan and that was to cycle together to Luxembourg. So I just took the full bag of food that I previously dumpster dived at Lidl the night before and couple of other items, strapped everything on the bike and we were both on out way.

Sandra had a huge bag on her shoulder and a single gear bike and even in these conditions with a very hilly trip we managed to get in the city center 28km and 1 and half hours later. I had a few extra kilometers to go until I would reach Lisa's place but it was all under two hours that I left Differdange and cycled for 32,45 km. I don't even feel tired and even though an incredibly sunny day I couldn't feel sweat accumulating other than between my legs due to a very crappy saddle that I should replace at some point with a hard, punctured one, if second hand or recovered from a thrown away bike maybe even made of leather.

This trip following the one from yesterday when I cycled for even more on main roads gives the confidence that I would be able to cycle like the guy I met the day before when again I cycled from outside Luxembourg back in the city and before around a forest in the north east of the city. He cycled from Luxembourg all the way to the north cape and back in a bit more time than a month from what I can remember and for future reference here is his website: http://jesusfunlife.com (his name is Jesus).

Sewing

Yesterday I used the sewing machine for the first time and I loved it! Lisa is a marvelous teacher. And today she also showed me how to fix a button on my pants. I´ll hopefully post a photo of what I sewed yesterday, a costume that I would like to wear for dumpster diving.

Inhabitat

Inhabitat is your average white middle class oriented and written by, "green" article storage place that I usually browse through to see at what stage the rest of the "green" society is. Yet today I was surprised to see a conglomerate of 3 articles that seem quite radical for such a medium as inhabitat. Here they are:

http://inhabitat.com/scotts-miracle-gro-pleads-guilty-to-knowingly-selling-toxic-birdseed/

http://inhabitat.com/new-data-suggests-30-50-of-the-worlds-food-goes-uneaten/

http://inhabitat.com/new-study-reveals-any-amount-of-red-meat-is-bad-for-your-health/

Good bye Marie-France

Today is a sad day. I have to return to Graffiti the laptop that I've been using for the last year. Her name is Marie France.:(

I am dumping some photos from 2011 here before parting with the computer for good.

It actually takes too long to upload so I've decided to just let all the pictures go since I never look over them anyway.

Here is a photo of her:

Parkour and gardens

Yesterday I was overwhelmed by the attitude of the EVS representative in Luxembourg so didn't mention the good things that happen that day. The day was actually packed full with such great happenings. First of all getting a new camera from someone from Free Your Stuff Luxembourg inspired me to film a bit of parkour training. It was up in Claused where I always wanted to go and this time I had the time and energy to do so without feeling pressured. It was a wonderful sunny and warm day so the movie highlighted that.


Following that of course followed a wonderful time spent with Lisa as everytime. She is actually the only reason why I am still in Luxembourg now. And since I'm here I'm trying to find new reasons as well. One would be the Beggen garden for which I put some effort today as well. After in the previous days we used the little seed incubator that Lisa got from her dad in a package today we also seeded some things outside but not too much because I was paralised by the option of doing something that would harm the living creatures in the soil to an extent larger than necesary. So instead after planting some leek, carrot, ruccola and spinach and after Lisa left I just went to on to cleaning the roof that is close to the garden plot in hopes that at some point I will be able to use it as a water collector. I need a tank for that and will have to go on a mission of finding it. I used the stuff from the roof to make another mulch bed under which I guess potatoes and pumpkings will d just fine.

Too bad I don't have a "before" of this since it was covered in branches, leaves and wood matter, all good mulching material.

"Open but not that open"

It was a shock to be presented with so much discrimination in one go. The representative of the local European Voluntary Service sector in Luxembourg received me today at the SNJ where I wanted to know more about the local "Service Volontaire de Coopération" which is mostly aimed at people living in Luxembourg but the only criteria being that one has had a legal residence in Luxembourg of one year. I had this yet the representative was telling me that I'm "in between" and that I wasn't really a legal resident and that the chances of me going for the program are more towards "no" than "yes". And he was giving me as an argument the intention of the government to keep it open for everyone but not that open! He was telling me that if I was to be accepted to go for this service than everyone else would want to join and that would give everyone the means to access the precious luxembourgeoise social security benefits, something that didn't even cross my mind before he mentioned it. Legally they are not allowed to refuse my application having been a legal resident of Luxembourg for the past year and dedicating my time to volunteering with no profit in one of the world's most well paid countries. I have my own plans on how to travel and where and don't need this very well protected social benefit scheme to which I guess he partakes but I don't like being openly discriminated like that. And I was just interested in knowing more information on the program. Now I will inform myself on my own first and see what it has in store and if interesting I will present myself with a solid file to them and see the results.

Trip to and from Torino

On this particular trip on myay to the Reclaim the Fields in Torino (left on the 28th of Feb. in the morning and got there in the afternoon of the 29th) I used the Ikill phone I got for free (would never pay for such a abomination!) to record some voice memos from which I get some input now although it could have been allot nicer to just use it as a GPS device. I should definitely get rid of it and get another smart phone instead that would allow for easy sharing of files but with a GPS system as well. Not having a map with marked gas stations was a big set back on this trip. Also for the memo part I could have asked the name of the gas station I was in instead of just saying I am "somewhere on the way to Strassbourg".

Other items that I wrote down would help with the upcoming bike trip are the following:
- small tupaware that could work as both a cup and a plate and carrying warm food around but also as a container for small items when not used for food
-  for hitchhiking a thick marker is a good idea even though for long distance, gas station hopping it's not so usefull and making signs should be avoided (ask people instead);
- the camelback backpack is very usefull when going for demonstrations to keep the water and other small items.

Regarding the food, I would have to say that being a bit more prepared with a bit more food would have been better and would have saved me from accepting the french fries that were first covered in meat offered by the Romanian trucker and the pesticide apple offered by the ladies at the place where I slept overnight in Switzerland at Relais du Grand Saint Bernard.

The food supply for the two days going to Turin were: a pack of dates, a pack of apple chips, a pack of mixed fruits and nuts and a packet with 4 other small packets of salty Torinesi sticks (found it funny to have Torinesi since I was trying to get to Torino).

Of course I am sure I will not forget but I will mention it again, that sleeping in Relais du grand saint bernard close to Martigny was a mistake and should have just stayed up trying with even the few cars that were passing. Here is how I looked like by that time though and with this trip being the first of this kind, the long haul type I'm sure it's normal to feel a bit low and tired.

AHHHHHHH! And of course I went to sleep because I felt incredibly cold from the wind that was starting at that time. Headphones that cover the entire ear are crucial against this!


Part 2 in regards to the stay in Torino and part 3 regarding the trip back still to come...

In Köln

I am right now listening to my voice memos that I took with the Iphone and which are not tranferable (fucking Iphone!) and one entry has to do with a falafel place I need to go to in Cologne/Köln and that is:

Köln (Cologne) Neustadt

• Habibi Falafel, Zülpicherstr. 26 (www.habibi-koeln.de), Cheap and hearty falafel (€1.50) and all entrees come with a free cup of tea. U9, U12, or U15: Zülpicher Pl., then head down Zülpicherstr. to restaurant on right. Entrees €1.50-7.70. Open M-Th 11am-1am, F-Sa 11am-3am, Su 11am-1am. Does not take credit cards. No wheelchair access. Serves alcohol. Has outdoor seating.

Fried tofu

This is one of Toni's specialities and before I throw out the piece of paper on which I wrote the few ingredients and steps for making them I will transcribe them here and elaborate.

We can start by cutting a block of tofu in pinky thick slices and frying them in a pan (oil needed of course). In the meantime a sauce made of 1 cup of water, 2 spoons of soy sauce, 2 smashed garlics can be quickly made. When the tofu is fried on both sides add the sauce and let simmer with a lid on until it evaporates. The tofu should be brown and crispy and so so delicious!

Gardens finished

Over the past weekend I worked on Saturday in the Dudelange garden and on Sunday in the one in Beggen. On both ocassions with the help of Lisa. Today I went back to Dudelange by myself where I finished the garden work, picked up some more stuff that I had there and fixed a bike for Lara who prepared a lovely focaccia for dinner to which Toni added his wonderful tofu recipe (1cup of water, 2 spoons or more of soy sauce, 2 smashed garlic cloves, pinky sized tofu strips first fried after which boiled covered in the mix). Photos soon to follow....

In Dudelange.

Also in Dudelange.

Today I also planted some garlic for them. It's still very cold for anything else. Still it was one of the warmest and sunniest days this winter and I was so happy to be outside.

Vegan chocolate cake

After tasting the cake of an Italian EVS volunteer that is now living in the room I used to live in Dudelange, I changed the only ingredient in it that was not vegan and ended up with what is probably the most delicious thing I've ever baked:

It contained the following:
100 grams of flour
40 grams of cocoa powder
yeast
a pinch of salt
vanilla syrup (about 100 ml instead of 100 grams of sugar)
a few splashes of olive oil
about a half of rice milk (a glass if using sugar instead of syrup)
*if not using vanilla syrup add a packet of vanilla powder

The mixture is supposed to be liquid and I did get it to pour into the shape that I than added to the preheated oven at 170 degrees C for one hour.
That's it and it's pretty easy and so, so delicious!

Sustain Rosia Montana

It was today that I posted the following on the Free Your Stuff Luxembourg facebook group:

Sustain Rosia Montana

Hi everyone,

approximately a year and 10 days ago this group was starting out as I found I write on my blog here: http://i-left.blogspot.com/2011/02/free-your-stuff.html Lucky I wrote it down as I forgot all about the date because at that time I had no idea the group would actually see any members. It did and the description of the group as I wrote it enjoyed many modifications from members who saw this not as a personal idea of an individual but as an already existing concept that should be shared and worked on collectively. The concepts of shared economy and crowd sourced projects exist in many forms allover the world from places where money has no value to some of the most capitalist systems in the world. And the group has morphed to suit it´s needs in the best way possible. I can only wish that members driven by this sense of curiosity of what can be achieved through this group will make it even better in the frame of NO MONEY but more importantly in the spirit of sharing, strengthening community and trying the best one can, to help out with either information, time, energy or just a plain, simple encouragement.

Inspired by this snowball effect I want to dedicate the following year and 9 days to another collective project to which people can bring their creative energy to affect change. I speak and write Romanian best since I´m from Romania and for this reason I was touched by the issue of Rosia Montana, a small village in the Apuseni Mountains of Romania. I could read the indy media sources from there and I want to share that with as many people as I can. Rosia Montana is a village where people live happily, yet corporate interests for the last 12 years have been grinding the community away and trying to displace everyone yet there are people who will not move unless "they bring in the army" as they say, which might as well be the case with the modification of an existing law. The Romanian media has been bought off so were the politicians. Even the president of Romania seems bent on propagating the certified lies (as proven in court cases) about the project. In these conditions simple people with no political, media or corporate links take it upon themselves to bring the issue to people´s attention. There have been marches, long distance walks, climbing of high peaks, occupations of public buildings and the recent "YesMen" action where the representative of the Romanian Football Federation was recorded agreeing with some of the most ridiculous proposals by what he believed to be the representatives of the Canadian corporation that wants to extract gold in Romania. NOTHING reached the Romanian media though and all the information that leaks out on Rosia Montana is from independent sources and the local NGO, "Alburnus Maior" formed by the locals of Rosia Montana in the early 2000s to have a platform to fight back: http://rosiamontana.org/en

What I want to do is take the message of the Rosia Montana locals, of "Save Rosia Montana" on the road. It would be set in the larger picture of exposing the waste society we´ve produced that consumes much more than is needed and creates large amounts of non recycled or recyclable waste and destroys communities to satisfy it´s hunger. For this reason I would like to put the money that I have in an ETHICAL BANK and brainstorm with people everywhere I´ll go on a MONEY LESS SOCIETY, alternative money systems and simple SHARED ECONOMY systems. I want to CYCLE all the time from place to place and encourage people to start CRITICAL MASSES in their area to promote a thriving bike culture. I will camp in abandoned buildings on the way and post photos of their state in case people want to use them and convert them into FREE SPACES with bike, metal and wood workshops, gardens, cinema, photo room, theater room, kitchen, etc. I don´t want to buy new the few pieces of equipment that I need and for this reason I would NEED the following: waterproof bike bags, -degrees sleeping bag, water proof boots, digital camera with long exposure function for those dark corners and studio headphones that would keep the ears both warm and musically. If I won´t find them on this group I will buy them second hand, make them or try my best without them since at this moment even though there are many fair trade food products there aren´t so many fair trade of anything else and even then I would find it hard to believe there is such a thing as fair trade gold or copper. I won´t buy anything other than VEGAN food for the following year but will DUMPSTER DIVE and VOLUNTEER in exchange for board and lodge with every chance I´ll get. I´ll also help out with starting food producing GARDENS and plots as I´ve been doing for the last years and encourage people to save and exchange old varieties of SEEDS rather than buying them from unknown dangerous sources. Of course a FREE YOUR STUFF group will pop up everywhere I will stop over for more than a couple of days. And most importantly I´ll try to get the two messages, "SAVE ROSIA MONTANA" and "THERE ARE ALTERNATIVES" out through FREE RADIOS and where there are none I´ll let the people know of free radio´s benefits. Soon enough there will be a blog and facebook page which I can only hope will have the same snowball effect as this group has had and that it will bring Rosia Montana in people´s minds and hearts with small and brief pieces of information (if I can manage:P).

To keep things short, I will be leaving soon and I want to let you all know it´s been very surprising to be part of this group, it was heart warming to meet some of you and lovely to spend time with a few of you. La revedere, äddi or addi, auf wiedersehen, au revoire!