In Essen

Halloj alles!

So, after having a nice time in Münster meeting up with the German Piratenpartei there I went on skating for Essen. I was prepared for a long day, seeing as I would do at least 90 km that day. I found my way quite easily at the start, but somewhere halfways I had to turn away from the road I was travelling to find a new one. I planned to, at least. It was hard, erh... Spent at least an hour driving around different roads trying to find the right way, sigh. It's not easy to be a long distance biker or skater in Germany, as the road signs for bikers only say the names of small villages that are close. There are no signs saying "Essen 60 km" pointing out my way. Well well, with my compass I managed to find my way at last and bought me some really dark bread for lunch. Was feeling quite tired then, the weather was good but it was really hot outside. And here in Germany I can't really stop for a lunchtime swim.

Oh, and before arriving in Essen I found a new type of feet problem (I thought I had been through them all!). This time I got rashes of the side of the foot. But oh well, it'll be alright once I start doing shorter distances like I'm doing today.

I spent the evening accompanied by the Piratenpartei in Essen at the house of the host of the night, Will. He and his wife had made a really nice BBQ with stakes, bratwurst, sallad and other stuff. I'm starting to get spoilt with all this nice food =) ... And breakfast today was great as well, but I think I will have to rest for a while before I go skating! But last evening was another great night of socializing with my fellow pirates and discussing the matters we all care so much about. I realize now that the differences between the Pirate party's in the different countries are quite small, and that to me really proves that we are a global grass root movement joining up behind this phenomena called "Pirate party". We all share the same goals, we all share the same dissappointment of how our democracy bit by bit is getting deconstructed. We share the same view on knowledge and culture politics. This shows that our party has not picked some parts from different places, thus putting together a good platform. It shows that what we are talking about is information politics for the knowledge society. And that from this spawns our views on knowledge, culture and democracy. It's all very tight sown together, and you can't take one piece out without taking another out. You can't say you are positive to integricy but not to free file sharing. You can't say you want an open and free democracy but not want to change the patent system. It's all one question, really. And that is what I've realized now, and it is what most other parties just can't see because they don't understand these questions like the Pirate Party does.

Well, let's leave that for now. I'd like to thank Will for all his hospitality, I've had a really good time here at his house. He is truly a warm-hearted man who has treated me so good - and as I use to say, this is what helps me going on. Seeing the world I'm not bothered about, what I want is meeting the world.

So, today I'm going somewhere halfways to Aachen. The pirates here said Düsseldorf, but it seems to me it's quite close to here and too far to Aachen from that town. So I'm looking for a place to stay that is halfways between Aachen and Essen - if you can help I'm very grateful for it! Mönchengladbach seems like a good place, can anyone find pirates there?

Pictures: So it's me and Bastian of Münster on one picture (the one where I have my skating stuff), me and Will on another and then two pictures of yesterdays BBQ.


Okay, well, I'm off soon, goodbye!

/Johan Lundström