Day 14
After a good nights sleep and a nice breakfast with Gerald and his wife (Caroline?) I started out again. They are the couple in the picture below. They had let me wash my clothes so I was fresh to start out again.
I followed the Hermansweg to visit the Hermansdenkmal (big statue) and then went further to externsteine. Beautifull stuff, and the weather was nice too. Then I knocked on a farmers door because Gerald said someone lived there who could probably help me. So there I met Pitt and I was offered a nice place in the hey barn. I really slept good (way better than I had thought in advace) and was offered a nice dinner and breakfast.
Day 15
I woke up really early because there was a bird that made the exact same sound as my cell-phone alarm. So I relaxed for about an hour in my hay bed and then went to breakfast with Pitt and his wife. I found out that they where actually pretty similar to my parents :) (children in Waldorf school, biological or self-made food etc.). Then I walked a nice route next to the Silberbach to finish the Hermansweg! I now followed the Eggeweg and saw some signs saying I was now on the E1!
In Altenbeken I found a lovely place to stay (after asking around for about an hour and a half) with a mother and a 10-year-old doughter. It was really cozy and felt good, and the kid immediately wanted to show me her garden hedgehog (who wasn't there). I even got to use their phone to call home :).
Day 16
I woke up real early to bring the doughter to to school, and then to for a morning swim with Dörthe, the mom. Nice to be near-weightless after dragging that rucksack around all the time. (and I tried out my underwater camera, but that didn't work out very well). Then I went out again to walk to Willebadessen. There I drank a hot chocolate and then went on the hunt for a cheap sleeping adress again. Finally I succeeded with a Russian-German man named Jacob. He let me sleep in his bed, so that he could watch some Russian movies and I could get a good night's sleep. Because I brought a lot of food today my back really aches, but I guess I'll live.
Day 17
I woke up early because I wanted to walk about 32 km today (to Marsberg). Jacob wasn't awake yet, so I ate breakfast in silence, and then woke him to say goodbye and thank you. Then I walked for a loooong time throug various kinds of silence, without meating anyone. After a while I really needed to use the bathroom, so I rang on a door on some kind of house next to a big car street. To only then find out that it was some kind of porn house ;). But I did get to use their bathroom and didn't get robbed or hit on. I didn't make it to Marsberg all the way, but slept in Essentho (around 30 km's), in a house with an elderly woman who treated me like royalty. I got a superb dinner and breakfast, a shower, and I could watch tv. (I made a picture of the dinner I got :)).
My back-aches are gone, but my blisters are kind of big and bad. They don't hurt at all, but because of the stupid anti-blister plaster I messed it up bad. (big open wound). So now I just use regular plasters.
Day 18
So after the breakfast I mentioned earlier, and having thanked the woman and her son I set out again. I was a bit lazy today because of the 30 km's I walked yesterday, but even though I too many breaks and relaxing a lot, I still progressed around 25 km's. In Benthausen I asked around for a cauch or something similar, got brutally rejected once, and then found a really nice adress. The guy who had invited me had to go play soccer, so after dinner with his mom/dad/sister/sisters boyfriend I watched Jurassic Parc III on tv (in German haha) and then went to bed on the cauch.
Day 19
After a nice breakfast with the guy and his father I talked to the guy (sorry forgot your name ;)) for a while, and then went away again at around 09:30. I deviated from the regular walking route here, because some wanderers told me I could reach my destination much easier. So I walked to Schwalefeld and went to the Youth Hostel there. It cost a bit more than expected, but it was nice, since I had fun with the guys who worked there. Phillip had invited me for a beer, and we had fun.
Day 20
After a rather awkward breakfast with a music band group that apparently rarely talked to strangers, I asked the manager for some help with my route. I couldn't even properly say goodbye to Phillip, because his boss couldn't find out that he had invited me to the staff's room. I walked to Winterberg along the Rothaarstieg because there was supposed to be a Youth Hostel there, but I found out it was actually in Neu Astenberg so I had to walk 5 more km's. (totalling around 25 again). There I slept good and long.
Day 21
At breakfast I met two dutch snowboarding girls. It was great to talk Dutch, even though I was thinking in either German or English all the time ;). They where really nice, and it was too bad that I wasn't there a day earlier, or I could have gone snowboarding or something like that. (I really wanted to, but the weather was shitty and I thought that I could do so better in Switserland anyway.
Then I walked to Bad Berleburg through really deep snow (really tiring). The weather was really strange, one moment bright sun and cold, the next hard snwow and very cold. My knee ached because of running downhill through 30 cm of snow, but that was fun ;). In the village I asked a woman if she knew any place to stay, and she invited me to their house. We first had to wait for Clara, the doughter who was in music class, and then went to the kindergarden to pick up Jacob, the son. The little baby was already in the car. We had fun, and later that evening I talked to the parents about "middle urine" and stuff like that :D. (The man was doctor). Then I went to bed without setting my alarm, because the children would surely come up to wake me.
Day 22
And indeed, Jacob came to my room to tell me that it had snowed all night (noooo, I was finally away from the snow :O). Then we had a nice corn-flakes breakfast, and I went away again. Strange to really meet people, and talk to them about interesting stuff, and see parts of their lives and then just go again, to probably never hear from them again. I got lost twice because the marking was pretty bad, but finally I arrived in Bad Laasphe. After asking around a lot I got a place in a camp-site, where I could sleep in the little house above the toilets for 10 euros.
Day 23
I woke up really lazy and slowly this morning, and then set out again through the cold snow. The entire road was covered in around 10 cm's and I could see nobody had walked here today. After a long and tiresome (and beautifull) walk I found out the road where I was supposed to go was off-limits, and I had to improvise. So I decided to follow the asphalt road and get back on my road again later. The problem was that I accidently walked in the wrong direction. :(. (I couldn't check with my compass because the road was really curvy). After finding this out after around 3 km's or so, I was really pissed and decided to hitchhike back. I soon found a man in a car who took me along, and brought me up to a restoraunt to ask if they had any rooms. They didn't so we went to his place where I met his wife and dog, and was invited to sleep there. It was a great stay and I talked a lot with the mother and the dog seemed to like me too ;). This was in Helgersdorf.
Day 24
Today I woke up, had breakfast with the mother and the 18-year-old doughter, and then set out again. I walked to Siegen, and looked up an internet cafe, and here I am :). I don't know where I'll sleep tonight, but I think I'll first walk a little farther because it's only 15:11 o'clock yet. (and I have been in this cafe for 97 minutes :O).
but first I have to upload those pictures...
Ok I'm off, love you all, I'm all right and doing great. Enjoying the silence and nature, and enjoying the lovely company of my hosts even more.
G'bye!
Ilja
Okay, so I have around 1/4th of the pictures now... and I don't really feel like adding more. Mom, I read your email and will do that later okay :). K bye!
Here is the link to the rest of the pictures, I´m sorry, but I only uploaded them on Imageshack: http://img12.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=p3210200.jpg .
