What are we doing? March 4th, 2001 Crossing Borders from Border to Border: Rhenen-Rhijnauwen There are days that just won't turn out right. So you fight your way through them manfully - there is no alternative anyway. I hadn't yet fully recovered from attending the second and third happenings at the Toon festival (I dislike electronic music, it makes me drink beer), when I found myself at my kitchen window, at seven o'clock sharp, cursing from the freezing cold, staring at a wiser world, which was quietly asleep. The staring continued for a while, because Johan van Dijk had overslept. Having moved outside out of pure boredom and frustration, I was picked from the traffic island next to the Haarlems Dagblad offices at 07:30, half frozen, by van Dijk and a disturbingly sprightly Max. He had not only devised a new plan for Dutch politics (democracy as we know it is disbanded in favour of a two party system and the king is awarded much larger powers, but declared unfit to rule immediately after taking office, to be replaced by regent F.), but also had a mobile phone. Of that, and of Max's as always deadly decibels, besides Johan and myself Hendrik P. van der Schelden and Jochem Prakke became the unavoidable victims, after we caught up with them at Shell-gasstation Amstelveen Hammerstein. They were in the other car, Marco van Zijntergen's, with Larisa Smit, and lost the both hazardous and insane race-to-Rhenen. Had the Hermandad been awake at this time it would have had a fine 2001, and a shortage of paper-for-the-tickets. But it was not, and so, baffled fellow roadusers behind us and with screeching tyres, came to a halt next to that same railway staion-where-we-limped-off-last-time. Not a happy reunion. All the merrier was the reunion with first-friend-of-the-Walking-Society Bert van Prijzen, who rovered in some five minutes later. And so Larisa and the seven dwarves marched into a silent Rhenen and leg 3 of 'Crossing Borders from Border to Border', a roguish practice project of the Academic Walking Society, had irrevocably begun. Rhenen and surroundings make a pretty picture, on an early sunday morning. Particularly when, all of a sudden, there's a Prakke in it, triumphantly holding a prematurely deceased rabbit high, before burying it in the bushes with a firm swing of the arm. Missed opportunity for photographer Marco, who won't easily forget this (we'll make sure of that). Past the heavily guarded offices of the Logistical Division Rhenen, through Elst, and by an impressive bit of toadguidance-by-beautiful-forest (you appreciate that kind of thing if you've ever had to scout out that trail yourself) on we went to Castle Amerongen. Prime target for the development of a live fire range for the Royal Air Force, as far as I'm concerned. The entire village, by the way, preferrably with a neutron bomb. I will explain this. That castle may be pretty, but in wintertime simply is closed. And the moron who lives there actually protests against a Walking Society respectfully gathering for a portrait on the steps of the staircase that leads to its front door. If you seriously make time for doing that on an early sunday morning, you deserve a web curse, so here. Fucker. And to think the Mini Friends were once so gracefully received there. Schelden, of course, eagerly took the chance for discussion and educated the man in the presence of higher forces than those of Article 461 of the penal code. This fell on deaf ears, but nonetheless took enough time to have the picture taken by a fellow visitor who was both friendly and (since he'd been invited) legal. And then I was hungry. Because that's what this leads to. Well, take 1 advice from me: don't ever go hungry in Amerongen. That is, not on a Sunday morning. As picturesque as that village centre is, the large variety of closed food providers makes it a prime candidate for a bomb. All the more so since, outside the snackbar, they do have signs posted that praise their fries-with-mayo, even at night. When they open they just move them forward a few inches, probably. Bastards. Criminal level of trust, that is. Try that in the west of the country. It knows order, your signs'd be gone in less than a minute. Bristling with indignation therefore, I stepped onto the dike with Prakke, walking down it towards Dorestad. That dike seems endless, so birdwatcher Prakke had lots of time to, from brick factory to brick factory, educate me in the how and why of the feathered rabble overcrowding the rustic water meadows. In normal lingo: it's full of geese, and Prakke knows all about them, even if they aren't geese. This was of no consequence to Max, trodding along a few metres behind us. He gave us a verbal hiding, blamed us for loads of things, from psychological mistreatment to treason to friendship, and loudly asked himself what in God's name he was doing here. Failing to answer that last one, but grinning broadly, Jochem and I therefore arrived at the lock of Wijk bij Duurstede. This is where the NetherRhine splits into the Kromme Rijn and Lek, an excellent spot to ponder sins. And also, it's the place that has Eethuys Dorestad. As is obvious when you look at the menu: Eethuys Dorestad is the foodcafe of my dreams. Seven day a week good food, brown interior and service with a smile. 1 buffelburger, two coffees and 1 Four Roses later Chielie was human again, and even the rest of the Walking Society had happily red cheeks once more. Small wonder, when the mountain of whipped cream on your plate is larger than the amount of fine applepie it covers. An impressive example of catering proficiency, a recommendation to us all. Moreover, Wijk turns out to be a town-with-a-sense-of-humor. They have weird streetnames, and The Real Estate Specialist Ltd. ('the house-seller without blabla') puts signs on houses sold that don't read 'Sold', but 'Too Late'. And picturesque! It even is crowded with storks. All nice. But still things got harder for me here. There were two new experiences, within my partaking in Crossing Borders from Border to Border. First. A sliding shoe, that I had already noticed on the Rhinedike to Wijk developed into definite blisterforming along the Kromme Rijn, where, by the way, we briefly took a wrong road for the first time today. Nasty little ditch, the Rhine, there, too. Second. My limbs were stiffer than ever before since Bornem. When I dropped down in Cothen, despairing over this bodily rebellion, I also heard that Larisa had left us. Not a bad word about her, by the way: Larisa had put up a great fight, walked on shoes that weren't completely broken in yet, and had raised her personal distance record with a respectable amount of kilometres. The fact that, just before Cothen, she got into a Volvo stopped by Schelden was a wise decision that confirms her toughness rather than enfeebling it. Luckily the misery was dealt with speedily by Prakke, who instigated a Twix-war, between him and Max. Lydiamum had namely provided Jochem with a large pack of them, and so he proceeded to poke out the eyes of the infamously calory-addicted Max with them. Max was allowed one, but only when reaching Utrecht. This pissed Max off so much, that he even scornfully stepped by the Twix-on-the-road's-surface that Prakke had sneakily hidden in a half empty wrapper. And in Werkhoven his first act, of course, was to order that Twix from the bar of Cafe van Lunteren. Now this is a fine cafe (and the only one; Werkhoven has more churches than cafes), with Ceefax (handy for Jochem, who didn't yet know that Schumacher had won Melbourne) and friendly barlady Miranda (always handy, for Jochem), but it doesn't serve Twix. And so Jochem won his war after all, and Max ingloriously succumbed to intense sugarcraving, fulfilled by a broadly grinning Prakke. Van Prijzen meanwhile reached an understanding with me, about the fishermen. He convinced me of an altogether harder stance than mine (blocking ports is altogether unacceptable, that's causing damage to innocent bystanders), and the fun in filling the courtyard of the Binnenhof (the seat of the Dutch government) with dead fish. And so we went onwards, rigid but satisfied, through the Forgotten Street, in the direction of Beverweert. That the Betuwe (a Dutch province renowned for its fruit) had begun, became obvious beyond this pretty, but weirdsided castle: fabulous flatland passed into overwhelming orchards. They, by the way, are voluntarily guarded against rabbits by falcons, we were taught by fruitpicker Max (who as we all know had flipped out in Tiel for a while). With all that, here at Odijk, today's stage began to look like a better DeathMarch. To Johan's joy, who picked up a fine pace at this point. Just like Max, by the way. I was able to admire this for quite some time (a Max marching towards you is a fearsome sight, particularly when accompanied by a van Prijzen) from the point where Schelden collapsed groggily. Okay, so he did have a bloodsugarlevelproblem, which he effectively quelched with a few sturdy sandwiches, but in reality this, of course, was just a lame excuse for the fact that he was lost again. And remained so, this despite assistance from van Prijzen. Because, promptly after getting up again, we took the wrong one of two parallel paths and found ourselves in a forester's garden. Gamekeeping is an in-cre-di-bly tedious profession. It must be, otherwise he would never have thought of NOT putting up a sign saying 'Private Property, No Trespassing' at the beginning of his garden path, but to DO put up a sign saying 'Private Property etc.' on the INSIDE of the fence between his garden and the public footpath along the Kromme Rijn, on the other side of the fence. Nonetheless this was a clever ploy. Since one can then happily fill ones Sunday with waiting until an unsuspecting lost Walking Society tries to climb over that fence and out of ones garden, then to threaten them with fines of sixty guilders. What grasshole. Bizarre incident, and if that wasn't bad enough, hell now returned rapidly from repressed memories. It's a scenic path, along the Kromme Rijn, but it's end-less. By Mansions and deer, over bridges and around Bunnik, through unnatural tunnels (shades of DeathMarch, again) and past stupefied ponies (Schelden: "hello FRIENDS!") with a view of the Uithof: there is no end to the variety, which is precisely what makes it so killingly boring. Reason for Prakke to lower himself to his deepest basality. Not that we experienced this, but it proved to be the case, when we arrived at the next rest, and we deduced this from two things. First there was Max's reaction. I have never seen or heard Max this appalled before. 'Prakke, you are a dirty animal.' That's the good thing about Max, you know: constantly heavily grandiloquent and flowery language, until he's really aghast. And secondly Prakke's face sported the kind of grin that irrevocably means sleeploss to Lydia. One plus one makes two. That's normal. Normal, but again this proved to be a stage of new experience: the Walking Society gave up. In the NYHC-teahouse of castle Rhijnauwen, namely. And rightly so, for it was dark, the distance we had yet to walk along the Rhine, to our destination in Utrecht was at least another three hours, all kitchens would have been closed by the time we got there, and all of us could have made it, but only while cursing with pain, but nonetheless - a new experience. But it was a nice spot to pick up the trail at the beginning of the next leg, since that youth hostel in Rhijnauwen is located beautifully, and must be a particularly pleasant spot in more summery circumstances. Nevertheless, this is how an exhausted Walking Society came to limp unto the Domsquare and into the Brasserie, to enjoy the hardearned evening meal (sateh & lasagna). Van Prijzen left us just before it, since he had to get up at five. But not before we had agreed on our satisfied feeling after a killing march. The brief episode that followed in the train from Utrecht to Rhenen (back to the cars), during which both Jan-of-the-FSide and Miss-Anouk-who-does-something-in-flowers were heavily verbally harrassed, by Schelden and Max respectively, I will spare you. Do ask them about it instead. Jan and Anouk that is, not Schelden and Max. To your health gentlemen, excellent walking there. Katwijk awaits.