Guns N’ Roses Song Remembered On The Road

I didn’t remember citing a Guns N’ Roses song in my diary travelling through the old Yugoslavia in 1987 until re-reading it recently, but was delighted to do so, after naming my memoir of the journey: The Guns N’ Roses Worker-Traveller.

Living the Dream is sometimes a Nightmare

This page of the diary also shows that I have always preferred slim waify women, preferably blonde, or honey brunettes, considering a Samantha Fox lookalike fellow traveller a ‘bit overweight’. That’s because when I said the same after a ‘relationship’ with a similar looking woman went pear-shaped people just thought I was saying that.

It also shows that I have usually been too standoffish with women, and was usually happy to take the easier option of watching the view go by, or get drunk, than enter into a relationship, or take the necessary steps of courting to make that happen. That was down to good ol’ simple shyness or uncomfortableness, and one of the reasons I liked a drink.

It also features a meeting with an old man, that was as far as I know genuine. I didn’t try and visit him in Athens afterwards. The book does include some similar situations that were dodgy, in part featured because of the grooming situation I knew was going on in Britain and Europe, and as a general warning for youth about the dangers on the streets; as bands like Guns N’ Roses were also warning.

Warnings for youths about grooming were a constant during my decade of writing, and I also tried to do the same in (post) university and work. It was my goodbye present to youth, as I passed into middle-age; as seen in poems such as the fictional what could have been Professor Green / Plan B inspired Middle-Aged Memories.

Maybe I should still be trying to be a youth, as Lemmy of Motorhead seemed to be, and was loved for it, and as I’ve said before, the goldlilocks zone for women is still 21-40; but only if they want to be with me for me, and not gold-digging! But, to be truthful, I hanker more after mature sophisticated conversation than partying and debauchery; although it’s nice to have an occasional drink.

I’m sick of explaining everything I write, but then remember that my doctor and professor examiners didn’t seem to understand what I was trying to do in my PhD. I was beyond them then; in my head and world anyway, and their perception of me; which I think was generally classist, and sexist where applicable.

It’s quite ironic that people were trying to retire me when I was in my early 30s, but now they wonder why I don’t want to go out on the town when I’m in my early 50s! C’est la vie!!

 

 

30 Years Travelling Anniversary: Athens Photos and Ticket, Alcohol Labels

30 years ago yesterday I left home and today’s the anniversary of me landing on the continent, after taking a ferry from Dover to Ostend. I reached Athens in time for my 22nd birthday just over a month later, after hitch-hiking most of the way, first heading west to northern Spain.

Athens Photos and Alcohol Labels

I visited the Acropolis in Athens, and took three photos, but collected more alcohol labels, which pretty accurately showed my priorities at the time: I wanted to see major sites I knew, but was more interested in the experience of travelling, meeting people and socialising. Here’s the photos from the Acropolis in Athens, followed by photos of the Acropolis entrance ticket and alcohol labels:

Acropolis Ticket and Two Main Beers

Wine Labels

Happy Solar Eclipse across U.S.A. and Everywhere, Two Months Travelling Thoughts

Looks like everybody’s having a great time waiting for the solar eclipse in the U.S.A. and I hope everything goes well for you on the big day, especially if you’re in the path of totality. It’s an historic occasion, and should be a historic memory for you… which is the kind of good event experience I recommend in my books.

Travel Diary Thoughts

Like arty creations do, I’m fast-forwarding ahead to the end of the batch of diary I wrote about in the last blog post, with an image of the packet the two months of pages were sent in from Crete, after I’d bought an exercise book to write the diary in from then on.

As I discuss in the diary page, I’d tried for work in Pirgos on the south coast and Chania on the north coast of Crete, and was now trying in Paleohora, back on the south coast. It didn’t turn out well for work there either, but I did find good work after that in Platanias, which is just to the west of Chania on the north coast.

This page includes reference to ‘worker-travellers’, which is what I named my book after: The Guns N’ Roses Worker-Traveller. It was quite an idyllic setting, with a tent community living on a nice beach out of season, with campfires at night.

The last paragraph contains some of my thoughts on the first few months of my travelling, and has more evidence of me being on a conscious journey of knowledge and experience seeking, with hopes that they would grow me as a person.

Travel Decisionmaking Italy to Yugoslavia Hitch-Hiking and Transport

Commiserations to the traveller victims of terror, and all the other victims, this week. That was one of the reasons I stopped this blog, but they tell us to carry on as normal, so that’s what I’m doing. Everybody should know the risks by now, so it’s up to you if and where you go.

People think I’m a pseudo-enlightenment (perhaps real?) overnight success, but I’ve been on an introspective self-analysis self-improvement journey all my life. For a lot of the people in my life that I’ve discarded and now avoid, one of their biggest flaws for me was that they didn’t know/accept their parts in my life: which was a small piece in a big jigsaw over half a century old.

Second Batch of Diary

In the last batch of my 1987 travel diary I mentioned deciding to take public transport through Yugoslavia. I kept writing my diary on the paper notepad until sending my next batch in a packet from Crete; it contained the days September 18th to November 13th, 1987:

Here’s the pages of my diary from journey to the Yugoslav border detailing that decision-making process, where I discuss with myself whether it was worth making it into my own personal expedition. If it had been a proper expedition, or training trial, I probably would have kept going, but it wasn’t, and I had been using public transport in and out of cities as well… as far as possible. It also includes a hitching day through thick fog, and poor sleep in difficult conditions.

 

Animals and Epiphanies in the Wild Extremities

The authoress of Wild walked 1100 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail, which is really impressive in itself. I walked 150 miles this summer, (60 over 3 days one month, 90 over 4 days the next month) and it was quite tough, although like they say in the movie, it gets easier, and the second longer trip seemed more comfortable.

Foxes and Deers

In the Wild movie the hiker/authoress has a bit of a meeting of minds with a fox. I’ve had some of those in the city, but not in the countryside. I did have a couple with deer on the walks though. One time a young stag bolted past me about from a 50 metres/yards away after emerging from another field, and probably only seeing me when it entered the field I was in. It ran about another 100 metres/yards, but then stopped and calmed down, and looked back at me until I walked away.

Another time I heard some rustling from over a wall while walking through a forest, and thought it must be a stray sheep or wild horse. Then when I got to somewhere I could look back at where the noise had come from there was a deer looking at me inquisitively from an opening in the wall.

I had only decided at the last moment to look back, not expecting to see anything there now, but the deer had obviously gone to the opening, planning to see what it had heard. When I reached for my camera it left.

Although it’s nice to have those experiences I try not to get too close, as the next human could be a hunter. I walked past one young rabbit who’d obviously seen me coming and had just ducked down where it was. It’s eyes seemed wide open with fear.

Sunrise and Sunset

She also talked of her mother saying that the sunrise and sunset were special times, and that you could either choose to be a part of that beauty or not. They were also one of the main reasons I wanted to get out into nature this summer, always missing them in the summer months where I live, although the winter sunrise location is ideal.

I did see some beautiful sunsets, with PinkyOrangePurple (POP) colours above green dales and wolds, or yellow crops. And I woke up to the sunrise on the east coast, bright and warm over the calm sleepy sea.

I’d been going on regular day trips to the countryside before that, but haven’t felt the need, or even desire, since. As if I filled myself up with enough nature on those two trips to last me a while, like a camel in the desert.

But I’d love to do a few months one sometime (soon), like the PCT; so all those humanity who think I’m only where I am because of them (apart from the nice positive ones, especially really beautiful single women to my slim and preferably light-haired taste), I’d probably rather be somewhere else, freed from them and the restrictions on the mind and movement of human society; restrictions that have increased since the New Wave of Monotheist Religion (NWOMR).

It’s not the colour of your skin I don’t like, it’s the way your mind works, and how it restricts my mind, and the freedom to live and think freely of people like me: the native people, as the Native Americans suffered, and other native people have around the world, including the Masai in Africa.

I didn’t like the ‘British white establishment’ for the same reason in the 1980s, which was one of the reasons I so related to Guns N’ Roses. But now I’m middle-aged, and can see why they were so critical of youths like me. I still believe in youth freedom though, and try to be an advocate like one of my heroes, Angry Anderson of Rose Tattoo, but some make it difficult… although they are often just pawns to my critics and enemies… formerly frenemies (a term I heard a few weeks ago, combining friends and enemies, for those people you hang around with in youth but don’t really get on with; another thing I liked about travelling, you could just kill them and bury them somewhere… I jest… I mean they were often just brief On The Road, and you could part with them quickly… as some probably did with me!)

Travel Experience and Philosophy: Too Truthful to Tell Twisty Tales

I could have made my memoir more heroic and interesting, but kept it true to how it was, and written in my diary without knowing where I was really going, or if it would ever be published. I watched the movie Wild last week, which is also a bestselling book: the memoir of a woman who hiked the Pacific Coast Trail. Last year I read the book To Live Outside the Law, which was a lot about travelling in a similar style to me, but in the previous decade, although published a few years after my The Guns N’ Roses Worker-Traveller. Such memoirs have a long history, perhaps back to Marco Polo in the west, so I know mine is nothing special: just another small piece in a big jigsaw of independent travel literature. Like those books, and the music I liked, as well as the war movies such as Platoon, I tried to tell the story from all angles, positive and negative, to show the full picture of humanity’s mind, culture and society; to provide my little addition to its knowledge, in the hope that it improves it for this and future generations, and the world about us.

Ironically, humanity seems to be retreating into the more extreme sides, right and left, black and white and looking for heroes who show no ‘weakness’ (‘weaknesses’ such as diplomacy, emotion, compassion, love, kindness etc). Sometimes this is irrational, but other times it is because people take advantage of the ‘weak’.

World Not Safe, or U.K.!

Some U.K. and European girls and women, and boys, who’ve tried to be ‘nice’ to other demographics, like the government and public institutions advised (demanded), have been raped, tortured, imprisoned and prostituted.

Some older people have lost their life savings because they tried to be ‘nice’ to people who phoned them, pretending to be a helpful adviser.

While I recently featured the Scorpions from Hannover singing the ‘Wind of Change’, fans of the Hannover football team were recently instigating crowd trouble in England (according to U.K. media). English fans who listened to the football association and government to go to Euro 2016 in peace were attacked by other fans in a targeted attack. Several tourists and travellers have died around Europe, although many more have misbehaved.

When I wrote The Guns N’ Roses Worker-Traveller I thought I might save some lives, or prevent some assaults and rapes, and maybe I have, that I don’t know of. However, I didn’t even follow its lead myself, and it’s only in the last couple of years that I’ve really tried to control my drinking, with bingeing always putting myself in danger; I always knew that, but by the time I reached what I call the Event Horizon, using an astronomy analogy, I usually didn’t care; especially if I was out with other people, and the night was still young… or there was somewhere open and something going on later in the night!

When I drink, and most people I think, we try and get to that nice merry place where we’re more confident and happy, and try and stay there, like circling the Event Horizon of Black Holes, according to astronomy. However, as gravity is very strong in space, so is the temptation to go further and further into the mind when drinking, thinking it will be an improvement. Maybe it is in an unconscious way; but the trouble is you are in a public place and comatose, and can’t remember it the next day, as nothing is supposed to escape from a Black Hole in space; we can send probes into our brain’s black hole, but can’t recover the data!

I was always a party animal looking for something different, or maybe just something more exciting. So I know people likely to be reading this in a positive way are not going to listen that much to me, or let them divert them from their search, but hopefully it’ll provide a little guidance if they’re open to it. I don’t think they’ll find anything different to me and all the other deep-thinking-searchers before me, but they’ll probably want to travel there anyway, as people still want to travel around the world to places already discovered and that they can see on T.V. etc.

I don’t ask anybody for personal trust, because I don’t think anybody should fully trust anybody, any country or any situation. Some people win your trust, often deservedly, or have your trust from childhood; family etc; and there will be times you’ll want to trust people, and I hope it works for you. Like the movie Wild depicts, going out into the world has its risks and I hope you’re one of the lucky ones; or not one of the ‘unlucky’ ones anyway, as most people are more good than bad.

Yugoslavia 1987 Travel Receipts

One of the reasons for the above soliloquy is that after hitching from Rome to Venice and the Italy-Yugoslavia border, and trying to hitch-hike for a couple of hours, having heard it was nigh on impossible in the communist country, with most traffic small cars full of family members, I caught a bus to Ljubljana, now capital of Slovenia. From there I caught a train to Belgrade.

I took my only photo in the country of the Danube and Sava confluence from Castle Kalemegdan:

Skopje Train Tickets

I then took the train to Skopje, and the next day to Thessaloniki in northern Greece.

Writing Home to Myself: Sending Diary

There were a lot of times when I was travelling I wished I was totally free of humanity; with no relations to worry about, or worry about them worrying about me; but family is good in other ways, and has benefits such as being a base. The way I travelled back in the 1980s, before all the portable and online technology of today, I may not have kept a diary together, and been able to write the book I did.

First Batch of Diary

The arriving in Rome day of my diary, scanned into a couple of posts ago, was the last of 17 pages of what I think was originally a notepad I sent home to myself from Rome; containing my journey hitch-hiking from west Wales via Belgium, France and northern Spain from August 25th to September 16th, 1987.

Here’s a scan of the envelope, with the postage wrong in typical traveller style:

I don’t know what the situation is now for long-term travellers, I guess most just do it online, but back then you usually relied on getting your mail sent to ‘poste restante’ at post offices around the world, providing a post office address that you planned to visit in a couple of months.

Rome Photos Built on Fantastic Day

This post is dedicated to a fantastic Italian woman from Milan, and a nice one from Reggio Emilia, and the good Italians I’ve met on my visits there and elsewhere, as well as my fellow campers at Camp Nomentano in 1987!

There’s an old saying that goes something like ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’; but I sightsaw it in a day; well, enough for me, although I probably only saw a small amount of what there is to see, and that from a just the surface category.

A Canadian traveller staying at Camp Nomentano reluctantly went sightseeing with me, showing me around, as he’d already done it. It was an amazing day, with lots of stunning sights on a hot sunny day. We also went to see the busking team at their regular slot. I took three photos: of the Colisseum, St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican and the Altare della Patria ([alˈtaːre della ˈpaːtrja]; English: “Altar of the Fatherland”) [Wikipedia], having to now look up the latter.

Rome from Home, Mystery of History

About three weeks after leaving home I reached Rome and spent a few days in Camp Nomentano. The shed beds were cheaper than pitching a tent, so I took that option. It turned out to be good on a social level too, as there was a cool crowd of people there. It was my first community away from home, and one I look back on with nice nostalgia. There was hot sunshine, and Rome being on the doorstep was a bonus.

Idyllic History Time Blurred but Still Recognisable 

Knowing more about humanity now, I wonder how long it would have lasted, and put the good atmosphere down to the time and place, rather than any inherent goodness in or about anybody. It was a great time because it was brief and shallow, without work or competition, new interactions with people who shared my old dreams.

It was special to me because it was my only such experience in my travelling around Europe, before reaching the stationery worker-traveller communities on Crete. For the others I met at Camp Nomentano maybe it was just another campsite; one of many they stayed at in Europe; or just another weekend for those staying longer, like the busking team.

But however much I try and diminish it, with the benefit of 30 years worth of experience and knowledge, now living in middle-aged grumpiness, knowing some of the current young hunt people like me with the ferocity of rabied rats; as I then viewed older people!; unable or unwilling to recognise anything other than their own disgusting desires (money, sadism etc), it still sparkles in my memory like the sun through greenY leaves while lying in one of the hammocks revelling in youthful laziness.

Here’s some photos, flyers and receipts from my time when Rome became my first home from home:

Rome Campsite, 1987, Photos

I’m in the green in front of our ‘shed’, with the sunshine and trees visible in the background. Homophobic conspiracy theorists will probably consider it evidence of gayness, but I put my distraction down to my self-diagnosed ADHD.

My fun-loving-not-caring-about-acting/looking-the-fool personality was evident in this photo too, when I fumbled over taking the photo, but that brought out an even better one; I think, not remembering the original; with much merriment amongst my fellow travellers:

Rome, 1987, Campsite Flyer

Here’s the flyer for the camp:

Rome, 1987, Campsite Receipts

Heavy Rock Videos and Road Trip Music Spain to Italy in 1987

After an eventful time in northern Spain my last day was a good one socialising with a fellow worker-traveller in Figueres, home of Salvador Dali. The first day’s diary below covers that. I then hitched across the south of France into northern Italy, where the hitching was good, and the Riviera cliffs to beaches scenery even better. I spent a night sharing a room in Nice with another hitcher I shared a lift with, after his suggestion. I briefly stopped in Pisa and Florence, before reaching Rome, told in the second day’s diary below. The whole journey’s told in my memoir, The Guns N’ Roses Worker-Traveller. If you want to see the diary days in-between these two, please request.