[PDF]The Sunhitcher: On the Road without Money

TOMi ASTiKAINEN


The Sunhitcher


ON THE ROAD WiTHOUT MONEY


DEDICATED TO US.
IMPOSSIBLE TAKES A
LiTTLE BiT LONGER.


Written by Tomi Astikainen

Published in Berlin on 17.1.2012

License: Creative Commons BY-NC 3.0
Logo on the cover page: Petteri Laakkonen
Other graphics: public domain, no copyright
Layout: public domain, no copyright
www.tomiastikainen.com


RECIPE FOR A TRAVEL BOOK


Ingredients


2 previous books (home-made)

3 useless diplomas

1 liter of olive oil (alternatively diesel)

250 liters of actual events

A map of Europe (alternatively World
Atlas)

5 critical facts about society

17 big fat lies

198 false names

385 bottles of beer

29 bottles of hard liquor

1 pan

1 small pot

1 big pot

28 grams of pot

1-300 spoonfuls of fiction

A pinch of plot

5-200,000 euros

1 thumb

A Swiss knife

1-2 backpacks

A towel

30 markers (fat-tip)


1 onion


Cooking instructions


Preparation time: 28 years
Cooking time: 18 months


Carefully separate notes from the
coins. Pour away the coins. Take all the
notes and use them to light the fire. Print
out the 3 books you have prepared earlier
and use them to keep up the fire. Heat
up the olive oil (or diesel oil) in the pan.
Add the diplomas and keep stirring un-
til burned. Throw them away. Open the
map of Europe and place the thumb on
the map at random. Go there by carefully
extending the thumb in an upwards posi-
tion.

At this point it is still important to
keep the thumb fresh, so don’t cut it yet.
Collect the actual events and keep add-
ing them in the small pot. Use markers
sparingly. Take the pot and add it to the
pot while stirring regularly with the map
of Europe (or World Atlas). Don’t panic.
Spoon away the uninteresting broth. Al-
ways bring the towel.

Open the beer bottles one by one.
Don’t let them breathe too long. Move
the boiled events from small pot to big
pot. Smoke some more pot. Add water to
taste. Keep adding the false names and
big fat lies one by one. Stir them well
with the facts. Spice up with fiction. If
too mild, add hard liquor. Add the plot.
Be careful not to make it too concise.
Keep stirring.

The book is ready when most of
the liquid is vaporized. Use the Swiss
knife to cut off the thumb to prevent
over-adding actual events. Serve for free,
fresh from the backpack. Peeling the on-
ion guarantees tears.


PART 1: SPRING


The answer is to educate people for functions more cerebral than fucking,
smoking dope, watching TV, or the idiot jobs most are currently toiling at.


Robert Anton Wilson


CHANGING THE PLANET!


What the hell? A truck driver listening
to Painkiller? Judas Priest was blast-
ing from a red Scania truck idling at
the Latvian-Lithuanian border. The
driver’s name, Jakub, was in the wind-
shield.

“Are you coming or not?” a
40-year-old semi-obese Polish guy
had a resounding American accent. He
was about to start towards Lithuania,
and probably beyond.

Truck drivers are hitchhikers’
best friends. They don’t give a shit
even if you look like shit. I did. The
zipper in my shorts was broken and
my loose-buttoned blue collar shirt
was covered in sweat. I usually had
Do-It-Yourself earrings—a screw pierced through my left ear and an aluminum ring on
the right. I took them off while hitching’, not to look so much like a terrorist. They say
that my blissful half-closed eyelids, sharp facial features and a wide grin on my face give
an impression of a cross-breed between a Buddha, a falcon and a rattlesnake.

“Um, could you maybe turn it down a bit? Terrible hangover,” I explained in Eng-
lish and climbed in with my small rucksack, water bottle and hitchhiking sign. Fuck, if
only I had a painkiller. Last night I had failed in hitching completely and ended up drink-
ing excessive amounts of Riga Balsam and playing Mortal Kombat with some Latvian
teenagers.

“Hi, Remmus Reverof,” I introduced myself.

“Reverof? From Russia?” Jakub asked.

“No, Finland,” I corrected. The name came from my great grandpa.

“Oh, Finland! Great country!” Jakub complimented and took a sip of his coffee.

Everyone kept saying the same about Finland, whether they had been there or
not—most often not. According to a recent Newsweek study, it was the best country in the
world. “Being born in Finland was like winning in lottery,” my parents’ generation used


1 Trampen, autostop, thumbing... it has many names, but the basic idea is to travel with people who
have empty seats in their cars. Although some hitchhike mainly because it’s free, many are also mo-
tivated by other factors: less environmental baggage, sense of adventure, meeting amazing people,
challenging yourself etc. People who are driven by fear couldn’t possibly be driven by strangers. They
think hitchhiking is dangerous. It is. Many people die in traffic, but usually in their own car. Even
more people die in their home. Hitchhiking is all about mutual trust. For more info: www.hitchwiki.
org


6


to say. I had never been able to put my finger on what they actually meant.

In Finland every newborn baby is entitled to a maternity package—diapers,
clothes and that kind of stuff—worth of 274 Euro. This is recognized as proof of a well-
functioning social system. But at the same time the babies inherit a share of the public
debt—some 15 000 Euro, growing by the minute. They are expected to pay this money
indirectly over the years in form of taxes, pensions and other side costs of work, once they
have been squeezed through the world-acclaimed Finnish education system to become
obedient worker gnomes.

“Well, it’s just a name for a geographical location, really,” I downplayed Jakub’s
compliment.

“What, you don’t like Finland?”

“Of course I value some sides of it, like people’s honesty, clean nature and a cer-
tain degree of freedom,” I replied. In fact, Finland was a country where I could do what-
ever the hell I wanted; run butt naked into a lake filled with clean fresh water or get drunk
and piss on the stairs of the parliament. This was the real land of the free and the home of
the... well... Santa Claus, I guess.

“There’s also Nokia, Linux, and a gazillion computer programmers,” Jakub added.

“Um, yeah. True. How do you know that?” I was bemused.

“Tused to be one. More of a hobby, really,” Jakub explained somewhat surprisingly.

Although I had never mastered the art of programming I was fascinated by their
work, especially the open-source communities they were managing. I had heard some-
where that the age of human brain cells is about seven years. If the cells renewed, maybe
it meant that the whole person changes, every seven years. Or maybe the brain cells were
like any other computer program: developed over time and released in various builds and
versions.

If that was the case, “me version 1.0” was the chubby happy child of 0-7 years.
Physically it was bloated like Windows Vista and relying not only on the developers but
the users as well.

Me 2.0, aged eight to fourteen, was full of bugs, kept on crashing, not very popular
and partly abandoned by the developers.

Me 3.0—the 15-21 years young rebel without a cause—was unpredictable and un-
stable. It seemed to run some sort of an evolutionary algorithm: It didn’t obey commands
but oftentimes did the exact opposite.

The fourth build of me—22 to 28 years of age—sucked in information at ever-
growing speed. Its processor was constantly updated, over-clocked and overheated. It was
perfect for intense social networking and accumulation of knowledge. It was a supercom-
puter which was capable of thinking it had super powers, but in the end its best feature
was that it was able to correct its own bugs.

4.9.5 was already a quite stripped down, simple and agile version that would be
soon followed by 5.0. which was still in the works: the code was drifting somewhere from
the abyss of ones and zeros to the wide sea of question marks.

In fact, just recently I had faced a dead-end. I had thought of giving up, tired of
fighting against windmills. I had questioned my reason to live. I even had thought about
offing myself.

But then the scales had fallen from my eyes: If I was ready to take my own life
today, I might as well do it tomorrow, and live today as if it was my last... and then ap-
ply that wisdom to every day, until I actually died of natural reasons—like choking on
a goldfish or drowning in asparagus soup. I would not wait for the world to change but
to be in the moment, truly connect with others, astonish people with good will and, with
my own example, do my best to actively change people’s perceptions of what’s possible.

Coincidentally I had just heard about the Hitchhikers’ gathering in Portugal. This


7


year it was called 6-8-10 and its slogan was “Yes—Oui—Ken”’. Sixth of August 2010.
In five weeks’ time? Five thousand kilometers, at least? Crazy idea! Two days later I had
been thumbing up already. The world is my oyster, yet it kind off smells rotten... Let’s go
and find out what else is on the menu.

I noticed that I had, once again, fell into my own thoughts. Jakub was clearly
expecting me to break the silence. “So, programmer... That’s why you speak such good
English?” I pried.

“Nah, I quit all the computer stuff ages ago. It kept me in front of the screen for
24/7. I started being physically so weak that I thought maybe there was another job where
I could... well, walk for instance. I moved to Cleveland, Ohio, for seven years. Worked
in a factory, practiced my English, hooked up with a Polish woman, knocked her up and
moved back to Poland. That’s the result,” Jakub grinned and pointed a picture of a baby
boy on the wall.

“Nice. How old is he?” I pretended to be interested.

“Fourteen months. You have any kids?” Jakub asked.

“Not that I know of,” I commented with a blink in my eye.

“Girl friend?” he kept shooting questions.

“Mmmyeeah... Kind of...” I mumbled. I had tried to avoid this question.

For almost a year I had been without anyone by my side—something that happens
when you retreat into solitude to gain some spiritual understanding, and to heal a bunch
of annoying STDs that threaten to turn your dick into a cauliflower.

I had been so close to losing interest to women whatsoever and now they were
barging into my life from all doors and windows. I had just spent my last weekend in
Finland with a stunningly beautiful girl. She, a business student with high hopes ofa well-
paying job, understood I was not going to be an ideal father for her future kids because
a) I refused to limit love to any one person,’ and b) I was exhilarated by my looming
personal bankruptcy. Nevertheless, a nice girl.

Got laid.

Then, just before leaving, a girl contacted me who had been in the same uni with
me. She wanted to meet me because she was also in the middle of spiritual awakening.
Hell! Former model and a successful business woman... waking up?

Didn’t get laid. Didn’t even try... too much.

I cursed the universe that it threw all these wonderful people on my path right now,
when I had decided to leave.

And now there was V.


<3<3<3<3<3


I had met the woman of my dreams at the backpackers’ camp in the most remote part of
Lithuania. It was a huge beautiful green hill with a pond, a barbeque area, old wooden
buildings, a proper sauna and a yurt—a traditional round hut cloaked with sheep hides.
Viktoria, or V for short, arrived there in the morning when I was cooking buckwheat por-
ridge for everyone.

What a beauty! I couldn’t help but noticing how enticing she looks.


2 Most people are conditioned to monogamy—to think that they can have only one partner at a time.
Polyamorous people, however, think that love should not be limited—that you can have more than one
intimate relationship at a time, as long as it happens with the knowledge and consent of everyone in-
volved. They define what it means for them, and stick to the common agreements. These relationships
are usually built upon values of trust, loyalty, negotiation, and compersion, as well as rejection of
jealousy, possessiveness, and restrictive cultural standards. Thus, it’s not cheating or polygamy. Read
more: www.polyamorysociety.org and www.lovemore.com


Fuckable.

In the afternoon V asked me to join her to take a dip in the lake. We walked across
green meadows, into the lush forest and down to a small path that swiveled through a
couple of tiny houses that were surrounded by herds of goats, berry bushes and vegetable
gardens. V wore a beautiful bikini which complimented her stunning body. She is was out
of my league, I thought. But somehow she liked my company.

In the evening I noticed myself serving V like Goddess, trying to please her any
way I can. I sprayed V’s ankles with mosquito spray. “You care for me!” V marveled and
her deep blue eyes enchanted me immediately. Hell, I really do care about her... quite a
bit, in fact.

We moved down to a bonfire and shared our thoughts about life, love and every-
thing else. It was so easy to talk with her. V wouldn’t even judge my somewhat contro-
versial and socially unacceptable opinions.

She suggested we’d go away from the fire so we could see the stars better. We laid
down on the moist lawn under the star lit sky. This is it. Now or never. Kiss her!

“Let’s roll down the hill!” she got a wonderfully childish idea. She went first
and rolled on her side all the way down the lawn, giggling and spoiling her clothes with
wet grass. I followed and probably squashed about a thousand small frogs on the way.
I bumped into her. We both laughed. I dragged myself next to her and the chuckling
stopped. We’d just watch each other in the eye.

“May I now kiss you?” I asked in a soft voice and our lips touched for the first
time. It wasn’t a long or extremely passionate kiss but a careful tender seal of approval
that put all doubts behind us.


<3


I sighed. Damn, I miss her. Jakub noticed me wiping a tear off of my eye and changed the
topic: “So, where are you headed?” I gathered myself.

“Portugal,” I forced a smile.

“Whaat? Portugal? Hitchhiking all the way?” Jakub almost choked in his coffee.

“Yep! Hitchhiking all the way. It’s the best means of travel,” I smirked.

“Well, PI take you to Berlin. But wouldn’t it be easier just to fly?” Jakub asked.
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