So we knocked on their door. They evenopened the door, but it took another five hours before we deciphered theirriddle, the magic word to set foot and wipe our feet on their holy doormat. Wehad the feeling we were so close all the time, but then out of the blue theofficial on the best chair told us again: ¨But I still don’t understand whatyou did for three months in Iran¨. But we didn’t mind explaining it again. Wehad time. Eventually everybody in the room fell asleep, we grabbed our bags,helped ourselves to an entry stamp in our passport, which actually read besidesthe date, ‘welcome to Israel’and off we went. Our first steps in this most controversial of all countries wepassed a big sign which said ‘go in peace’, this I understood so far, even agreedupon, but looking back over my shoulder I didn’t see anything like this. Itseemed like they have only one way traffic in this place.

We entered Jeruzalem in the middle of the night. Wedidn’t see anybody because the black of their cloaks camouflaged them againstthe black of the night, only the next morning, when we woke up looking out onthe ultra orthodox Jewish quarter, and through one of the hundred gates as theghetto is called, we entered the theatrical world of the saddest people in thewhole wide world. People mourning the loss of their temple thousands of yearsago. Mourning the loss of their grandparents. Mourning the fact that theircountry isn’t only theirs. All together, mourning life in all it’s facets. Andwe are there, in the middle of the sancta sanctorum of three big religions,feeling the tenseness of society. Also aware of the fact that Jerusalem is notonly the sancta sanctorum for the people of the book, but also for politics, itseems like every conversation is soaked in some kind of propaganda, and welisten to it (you don’t discuss in Israel), until we get tired of it.

We didn’t sleep much last night. We are in Istanbul, the city thatwe came to love so much in the past month. And even before, because this iswhere our travel started two years ago. From where we flew to Hindustan as they know it here. We are still on the Asian side in one of the mostbeautiful districts. It’s quiet outside not only because it’s early but alsobecause it is one of the few quiet places in this vibrant metropole. This isthe house of our friend Funda who lives here. We make a fast breakfast oftahina, salad and delicious braided Turkish cheese, we take a cold showerbecause it’s the only flavor there is but it wakes us up. Now we are ready forthe road, the long road but short when we look back over our shoulder fromwhere we came. Leaving Istanbul is hard, weleave friends behind and it’s a magic city, a city of sultans, city of palacesand bridges to Europe. Maybe that’s why it’shard to leave as well, because it means a definite goodbye to the orient we gotused to, and not only used to, but the orient where we truly lived. But wedon’t look back. And there is no more beautiful way of leaving Istanbul than by taking the ferry from Asia to Europe,passing the Topkapi palace and the blue mosque. A last hug at the trainstationand we hop on a suburban train out of Istanbul.At the last stop we get out, not knowing where we are and start walking in whatwe think is the right direction, the Balkans. Good for us, is that the bestpart of Turkey is inhabitedby very friendly people who used to live in Holland or Germany and are more than willing to help us out. So a conversation about Dusseldorf in German did the job and a very friendly truckdriver helps us to the highway to Edirne at thecrossroads between Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece. Down the viaduct and herewe are again, besides a rushing stream of cars, of which only the trucks seemto be within arm reach. But before we are able to lift our arm (Nina is stillmaking the decent from the viaduct) a truck pushes his breaks and comes to ahalt three hundred meters ahead of us. We run because the side lane of a bighighway is never the most energetically balanced place to hang around. For adistance of thirty kilometers the guy on the steering wheel keeps on naggingabout hitchhiking being so dangerous (well, there is a funny anecdote to this,since one month ago there was an Italian woman who wanted to make a statementby hitchhiking from Europe to Israelin a wedding dress. Somewhere around Istanbul she got raped and murdered. Point made, I would say. But there is more to it,namely that these things only get in the media in Turkey when it concerns aforeigner while still making a half-hearted attempt at joining the E.U. but Idecided to try to talk about politics as little as possible in this blog, so,where was I?) … The guy went on talking in Turkish, repeating the word ‘maniac’over and over, until I asked Nina if we should make him stop since he was the biggestmaniac we met in more than 5000 km of hitchhiking, but we were saved by thebell. We were at his exit and we exit. Next car is a 19 year old boy driving aneat 90 km/hr who makes an effort to bring us to the right road towards theborder. Next ride (there is no waiting time at all this time, Nina is stillcorrecting the rose in her hair we plucked in the green stroke of the highway)is a Bulgarian man with his neighbor coming back from some Saturday shopping in Turkey.And this ride turns out to become a funny one. We tetris ourselves and our bagson the backseat of the car which is merely filled with obviously cheap toiletpaper from the Turkish Republic. They are on their way to some kind of ‘gratand we are with them. Soon after we arrive at the border, and we can see thatTurkey was running out of money in the last (or first) twenty kilometers oftheir country, where factories are abandoned and the roads full of potholes. Wepass customs easy and efficiently, and together with Giorgis and Elena we makea stop at the duty free shopping centre where the real purpose of their journeypops up. Nina and me, we both get a bag with 36 packages of cigarettes, themaximum amount you are legally allowed to take into the E.U. if we would benice enough to tell customs we own them if they ask for it. We are. It takesanother 15 minutes before Elena manages to hide about 60 other packages ofcigarettes underneath her clothes with tape. We take a look around and seeseveral other people doing exactly the same thing, taking their cars apart tohide some fags. We are not worried, laugh, get in the car and we are in foranother surprise; getting into the European Union is a bit like getting into,or at least how we imagined, getting into Kazakhstan. It involves a tremendousamount of waiting and seeing a lot of different counters. It even involvescarrying a memory stick from counter a to b to c. There hasn’t been an officialwho took so much time inspecting our passports on not being counterfeits as thegentleman at the Bulgarian border. And more and more counters where there. Andnot one selling snacks. This must be Europe. It took more than an hour beforewe were in Bulgaria where the potholes were even bigger. The first village wepass goes by the fantastic name of Kapitan Andreevo (we are not near a sea atall, in case you were wondering) where we wait for the next ride. It’s a niceone as well. It is the daily bus from Istanbul to Kosovo, who usually goescompletely empty but today had one passenger. Think about this again. Every daythere goes an empty bus from Istanbul to Kosovo and back again. And we were onit, all the way to Plovdiv where we would end the mission for today. The onlypassenger in the bus turned out to be a very interesting man from Kosovo who fledduring the war to Istanbul and now returned for a visit. Now, while being amechanic engineer, he is teaching children at a primary school since 80% of allfactories are destroyed in Kosovo. His Turkish driver drives Turkish whichmeans it doesn’t take long at all before we are at the turnoff for Plovdiv.It’s raining, another sign that says we are in Europe. In the distance thecommunist style skyline of Plovdiv during a sunset in black and white. Nextride, another Turk being here for oil or the market, depending on Nina’sversion or mine since the guy was very nice in his own language. He brings usto the main post office where we are supposed to meet Daniela. We eat pizzawith pickles of which I think is something that should be illegal in the E.U. Tonightwe sleep in her kitchen. Let’s call it a day.

We decide to take a refuge in what Israeldoes have to offer us, that what triggers the love for what we do, and so wemove to the epicenter of Israel’s young and creative generation. Tel Aviv.Where fashion meets the beach. I think we left as the only people in the worldwho actually went there who didn’t like the place. The chocolate soup we atewas pretty sexy, we met Oded Ezer in his typo lab who was absolutely inspiring,and the fact that we can say “we were there” is all there is to it. We don’tunderstand the hype. But that’s us, We hitchhike through the PalestinianOccupied Territories, in search of better places. We walk the Golan Heightswhich are indeed very beautiful but is still not really Israel if you ask us.We stayed in a Kibbutz, which was less a Marxist occasion then I (romantically)imagined it but much more one of Zionistic appearance. Despite the very nicepeople we came to know here. We tried to go there with as less prejudices as possible;please believe us, we really tried. But suddenly we had to leave, We rush toHaifa where we manage the same day to embark a gigantic tanker which will bringus to the island of Cyprus, of which we know nothing about except being aholiday destination for the British. We hold our breath and pass through, asfast as we can. Halfway the island we have to cross the green line of theirsilly conflict, through a city divided as Berlin once was. This is the secondtoo high, too concrete wall in too short time we see this month, and it makesus sad. But even more confronting was the alien kind of tourism we met. Englishin kaki clothes, totally ignorant of the pointlessness of the conflict, on whatis going on in their holiday paradise. But maybe that’s just the right thing todo, and I shouldn’t feel sorry for the Cypriots selling their land to theBritish, polluting the beautiful coastline with their ugly villa parks, stillthinking that they can colonize the world. The first European country we enterdoes not feel correct at all. The third night on Cyprus we have the mostbeautiful thunderstorm and we are happy that we treated ourselves for once to aproper bed & breakfast. This is the first rain we saw since nine months.The next day we leave by ferry to the Turkish mainland. We cross the heart ofAnatolia where the mountain peaks are still covered in snow, to the magic landof Cappadocia where we sleep in caves in a landscape of fairy chimneys. Alandscape in which we expected Tim Burton-like creations to jump up from behindthe rocks and start doing a beautiful dance and sing a pretty song. We made upthe song and while humming the tune, we made our way to Istanbul.

And here the circle is round. From Istanbulto Istanbul with a detour. The month we spent here was a month in which ourminds already wondered ahead of us. Ahead to a studio in which we willtransform our dreams into reality. Where new dreams will be born. The roadahead of us is just a formality, a thank you for all the things we learned in thepast two years. Tomorrow in the morning we’ll be on the road again. We arelooking forward. We’ll see you soon.