Thursday 29 September 2011

2. Shoes


Two weeks of wearing no shoes can begin to take its toll even on the best of us, thus it should not be of too much surprise that after two weeks it had begun to start taking its toll on me. I found a robust splinter lodged firmly into one of the most pressured areas of my foot. With every step it got a little deeper, with every step I limped a little more, and so with every step the next step got a little shorter.

Given the escalating nature of this detriment, a clever man naturally would've taken it upon himself to treat himself as early as possible. A clever man would've got the splinter out, disinfected the wound, put a bandage around it and a clever man would have kept it clean, especially if such a man were to know that he would be without shoes for 2 weeks while cycling 1800km across Europe.

Now, I don't mean to suggest that I am not a clever man, but I did not do this. At all. I figured finding a bike was most important, I figured finding the bike would be easy, I figured a splinter is just a splinter, and I eventually figured that I suck at figuring. Besides, at first it really wasn't too bad; I could move about and it wasn't too painful, I was still with one friend so he could help carry my stuff and I was a tough cookie, or I at least thought I was.


The search had started well enough, we managed to visit two bike shops in 2 hours. However when you know nothing about bikes, it turns out that it's quite hard to make a decision. We walked a good few more kilometres to try and find the third, finding it quite depressing when it seemed to not exist. My friend had to leave for London at this point so left me with my 7 different items to carry. My foot was becoming really sore, while every finger belonging to each of my hands was now locked in different roles carrying my luggage. I needed a bike. I was so sure that once I had it everything would be ok. I would be able to put all my bags on the back, I would be able to use my hands again, I would move around the city as I pleased, I would be free.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to find one in another location far out of town so I hobbled back to the train station central and set up my sleeping bag on a patch of grass outside some houses in central Berlin.

The humming and buzzing of the trees and plants gently awoke me in the morning. The buzzing got louder, at which point I remembered that trees don't buzz and turned my head to find a massive lawn-mower tractor thing driving straight towards my head. I jumped up in my schlafensaccen (sleeping bag) and saw the Gerrman driver laughing at me. Not the first German to laugh at me in these last few days, and I very much doubt the last.


I spend another day trying to find a bike and failing, I can't walk anymore. I'd borrowed a needle and a lighter off a dutch man the day before to get out my splinter, but had not cleaned it afterwards and was still wearing no shoes as I tramped around Berlin. It was no doubt very infected and aggravated now. I kept dragging myself round looking for a bike, I could barely move, and I felt like that guy in 'the void'; a movie which depicts a man who breaks his leg on a mountain and drags himself many kilometres to his camp without food or water. Though this isn't perhaps quite as bad, I still feel sorry for myself. Eventually after lots of failed bike shop visits to far away areas, some near-crying, further naps on the street and a ton of will power, I manage to carry myself to the last bike shop on my list.

The owners are impressed with what I am trying to achieve. Being keen cyclists themselves, they give me a 30% discount on everything I buy and Mum convinces me to use the euros I have saved to get some shoes. I think about it, but firstly smash the shit out of a burger King. I get some shoes from the 1st ever Adidas store (uber cool) and very happily mount everything on my bike and freely cycle to the station to board a train to Poland. A bunch of Germans start a conversation with me on the train. They see what is wrong with my foot and are a bunch of hypochondriacs and tell me I will probably die. Typical Germans. Before I know it one of them has his plastic gloves on (I have no idea why he is always carrying them) and is popping the wound while I lay on the train floor, biting down on my bicycle chain, spluttering out mumbled profanities and stern, manly growls of pain. 

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