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What are we doing?
June 11th, 2001 34th Marche de l'Armée, Diekirch  The second official march of the 2001 season, the 34th Marche de l'Armée in Diekirch, Luxemburg, turned out to be a joyous occasion for Schelden and myself, because we ran into a lot of acquaintances. We had decided to attend this march in any case (Henk had last done it five years ago) when, at the Death March, we heard people actually got killed on this one, from time to time. You see, we have this liking for the insane, eh. That deaths had occurred turned out to be true, and it turned out to concern younger people, falling over due to too much alcohol (at Diekirch they brew this seductively good local beer, which, though, by the way and to my opinion, must recognize its master in Simon, also brewed in Luxemburg) at too high a degree of exertion in too hot a sunlight. Given that combination, we could understand that, after two days of walking this course.
 Added bonus was the fact that we were not alone. On the one hand there were pitifully few Wandelsoc.-members, because we had declared this to be the Annual Society March at the last Ribbonshower (see also 'What the hell's a Wandelsoc.?'), on the other hand we were accompanied by Jochem Prakke and his girlfriend Lydia Smith, which made up for an awful lot. Because we had no mind to make it difficult on ourselves, at the beginning of a season, we travelled with Bavelaar Enterprises.
 Huib Bavelaar is a schoolteacher from Schoonhoven, and a walking freak. He's been organising bustrips for years now, to marches like Diekirch. This, in itself, is a job well done, and it's also one heck of a hassle that he pleases a lot of people with, but as far as we're concerned it does not merit a repeat. Not that we didn't have any fun. That started at Utrecht railway station, where, under fully black civvies, I appeared in my black soldier boots, that I had bought for the coming MESA and that I, after all, still had to wear in. In short, I looked like an escaped neonazi, and so people 'round me got very confused when I held the door open, in most gentlemanlike fashion, for an entire Moroccan family which wanted out onto the Jaarbeurs square, pram and all. Haha. For those of you who weren't aware yet: I vote the Dutch equivalent of Labour (and congrats on the election victory, Tony).
 Once on the Streef Reizen coach (we travelled southward in two of the things and, luckily enough, from Den Bosch onwards (we took on extra people there), I was in a seat next to a very quiet and friendly chap, Theo Driessen) insanity got a faster grip on things. Schelden almost immediately got warned by driver Stef that he'd be ejected forcefully if he'd ever touch that emergency mallet again, whereupon 'coach commander' Flip Koster mumbled into the microphone that that "probably concerned the reverend again". Schelden, of course, had just attempted to use that mallet to bash in Jochem's brains. Flip, a friendly garden gnome with a lot of marching experience below the belt, led us past more fun like this, and via a break at an AC roadside restaurant in Belgium, towards Diekirch.
 Now Flip Koster actually wasn't that bad at all. See, he was only trying his darnedest best, and he couldn't be blamed for not having anything more interesting to say when entering Belgium close to Liège, than that it's crawling with brick factories, that they are to blame for the damage to the surrounding hills, and that, if ever you worked as a riverboat sailor, it is good to know that the surrounding landscape looks much differently from the Meuse river than it would if you were standing in it looking at the river Meuse. This kind of banter goes with the organised bustravel territory. Moreover, Flip really did try to be humoristic, and his litany about the heroism of and the respect we should all have for the Walker, whether he walks twenty or forty kilometres, was entirely honest and utmostly righteous.
 But having to fill out and snailmail a coupon to get a packet of blankets (when you can just as easily ask for and receive the things at the youth hostel itself) and, on the bus, being presented with a floorplan that says it is a 'suggestion' but which details everyone's sleeping spot in the hostel down to the number of the bed (when, on arrival in the hostel, the beds turn out not to be numbered) and puts all women in one separate room, that's the kind of shit I was so happy about when leaving school, because I would never have to come across it again.
 Enter Bavelaar, therefore. This got worse when we finally arrived at the youth hostel in, the by the by most picturesque, medieval city of Vianden, dominated by a huge castle. Since, as soon as we debarked from the bus there, the wrongful impression that first reared its head in Utrecht, spread like an oil spill. Of course, it was only to be expected, that fellow travellers, when taking in our appearance (as I said before, I was in total black, Schelden wore his suit-jacket-with-the-Diekirch-medal-on, and Jochem was in his most offdutylike bartender-on-holiday-dress, in short, Lydia was the only one with a close-to-normal appearance) would conclude that we were "not real walkers", and would be strengthened in that opinion when we immediately set out to look for the nearest pub, after we'd simply chucked our gear on the beds, while the rest were still dutifully busy making them.
 Since the nearest pub turned out to be closed, we ended up on the terrace of the conveniently situated and, ambiancewise, very pleasant Hotel Oranienburg - Restaurant le Châtelain, where fair barmaiden Wendy wields the sceptre. Wendy, quite apart from her tastiness, is an amazing broad. Apart from rickety French, fluent Letzebuergisch (Schelden, to his utmost content, quickly established that this is really very much like Bernduetsch) and fluent German she, most unusually, speaks fluent Dutch, because her parents are Dutch.
 She, then, supplied us with half litres of beer, which continued until Huib came to put a stop to that. You see, he had been on that terrace himself, with the likes of Flip, earlier on, but had given up a long time ago, by the time that he, at eleven thirty, came to beg us, with redrimmed eyes, to leave it and go back to the hostel with him, so he could lock up. Damn! Curfew! Thrown right back into the darker spots of my already wrongful youth!
 This did not change the fact that we aren't the hardest to get along with, and so answered his plea. Even Schelden, who, however, first proceeded to drain his half litre in one gulp, only to immediately have to partly fill that very same glass again, with puke, the rest landing in the bushes in front of the restaurant. Back at the hostel I had a hard time falling asleep, for laughter (mostly internal and, in any case, as silently as possible, but yet not unobserved, since 1 of the Haarlem brothers, Erik and Jeroen Joolen, who, I think, was thinking the same, was laughing along just as quietly, as I noticed), because I knew what would happen the following morning.
 Which, of course, was that, to the amazement of Flip, I was waiting for him in the breakfast hall downstairs, as the first of the punters, at a quarter past five in the morning, looking utterly spiffy in my Wandelsoc. outfit, coffee in hand, politely inquiring as to when exactly that bus would leave. Hahaha. And the looks on the rest of our company's faces got more disconcerted as Jochem and Henk also appeared at the bus, in smart outfit, rattling with batons, looking lively and cheerful.
 Time for the first marching day therefore, which then passed without all too much ado. The character of the track on that first day lay somewhere in between Bern and the MESA. On the one hand it almost completely ran over hardened surface and often through outskirts of towns, on the other hand it was pretty hilly and had a lot of forest (although the roads through those were still hardened ones). The hills, it's true, come in smaller numbers than they do at the MESA, but they are a lot steeper. At the end of the day, for instance, there was this monster of an 18 percent climb that I will not forget easily and that thus made that story about the occurring deaths gain credibility all the more. This effect was enhanced by the weather, which was almost too good, namely blisteringly hot.
 In organisation and atmosphere within the field of participants, too, Diekirch is much like the MESA: it has the same excellent sausagy rests (although in Diekirch they are even more frequent and, often, totally civilian in nature), which sometimes even sport yummikky soup (Georges', namely, although that was on the second day), and it has that same idiotic mixture between military and civilians (although it is obvious that in Diekirch the percentage of Dutchmen partaking is _much_ larger than it is at the MESA, namely about 75). The big difference between the two marches is in a. the two day nature of Diekirch, b. the more off-the-road and cross country character of the MESA-trail, and c. the absence of civilian eat- and drinkstops there.
 Do not be mistaken, however - Diekirch, too, is a heavy march, because of all those hills. Moreover, the second day of it was much more MESA-like, that is much more off-the-road. Not only because of that, but also because she happened to be walking the twenty kilometre distance, we lost sight of Lydia pretty early on the marching days themselves. And of eachother, because, although we all wore the same outfit and this was the Annual Society March, each one of us maintained his own tempo. Which meant that Jochem and I charged ahead like elephants on the rampage (this only got worse when, on the second day, Marco van Zijntergen joined us - he had come over especially for that second day, since he had to attend a wedding on the first, had driven down to Luxemburg during the night, parked by the finish in Diekirch, slept in his car, and nevertheless naturally marched that single 40 like a greyhound) and, amazingly, Schelden went socializing somewhere in the back of the pack.
 This led to hilarious affairs at the rests, where, as usual, I waited for Henk - only to leave as soon as possible when he'd arrived. But not before we'd given him a hiding about his "unacceptably" slow marching speed and late arrival, and blamed him for the stiffness of our limbs. Astonishment amongst the other walkers, who observed wide-eyedly how, after slanging-matches like these, during which we pushed and shoved eachother around, we contentedly sat and drank beer together.
  
Or grinnning widely, as far as they were walkers who had met us before. Like Henk and Jan, fellow townsfolk with the right attitude, whom we had met in Bern and who, furthermore, gladdened us greatly by bringing along Henk's daughter Linda, and a photograph, made in the partytent at the finish in Bern, depicting Schelden pinning the red 'n' white he earned there unto Marco's chest.  Like Henk Bakx, Pieter Spaan and that-beardy-nutcase-who-looks-like-Nico-de-Jong-but-whose-name-I-cannot-remember-for-the-life-of-me, reservists of the grand kind, sporting great beer-dependency and thus usually to be found trailing along happily in the back. Like the Korps Commandotroepen (in, amongst others, the person of Peter Wey, standardbearer of the Ex-Commandos' Walking Society), whom we had already gotten to know so well during last year's MESA. And like adjutant van Dongen, the man I would never forget anyhow, since he was the one who, together with Schelden, dragged me through that hell of my first MESA. A happy reunion, all in all.
 And there were new friends as well, like Young Student Shooters' Association Pro Libertate, of which many believe the Wandelsoc. to be a replica, at marches like these ("Oh, so you are the Wandelsoc., now I get it. But uhm... ...this makes the Wandelsoc. something like a young shooters' association?" "No Sir, the Wandelsoc. does not bear arms. Should the enemy ever arrive, we will give him so much free beer he will fall over, that's our tactic"). Like the Dutch Dream Team, some of whose members Jochem knew from his time in the service.
 And like Petrouschka, ut-ter-ly hot thang, who was present as part of the sociable walking association WIOS, spent the entire day cajoling with us and, despite her marriage, managed to drive particularly Jochem's hormones crazy. He was so over the moon with that that he eventually even got her to let him photograph her ass as well as her figure (however he did omit her head, which wasn't all that bad either), even though she'd covered her backside with a sweater all the time, because someone had once told her that hers was a 'motivating piece of ass' for the marchers behind her. Heehee.
 
Jochem had a time to his heart's content anyway, since Petrouschka was not the only beauty around. That's the major difference between Diekirch and all other marches: it's rat-tling with loverly wimmin. Like Patricia from Luxemburg, a high class model pur sang in red 'n' black (the high class does fade to the distance when she opens her mouth, since the Letzebuergian she speaks is not quite the thing you'd expect then ;-)).   
Or like Silke, the Andernacher Polizistin we had first met in Bern and that Schelden's so fond of. Complicated story that, since she appeared in the company of, other than fellow-Polizistin Claudia (a cute Italian-kinda thing) her subservient Stefan. Whom she kissed and cuddled, regularly, so then the question was what he was to her. Schelden immediately decided to forget it all, but Marco and I decided and still maintain that Silke has nothing but hot sex with Stefan and is still also interested in Henk. Otherwise she would not come looking for him herself every time eh.  That aside, these German cops were the people we eventually 'marched' across the finish with. Between brackets, since we, meaning me in particular, are not that good at it. But other than that we did, since you have to do sòmething to beat the boredom, and besides, it's nice to receive that applause you get like a Pavlov reaction from the attending crowd, any time you're a uniformed team. Furthermore, we had a great time singing, from every national hymn we could think of to excerpts from Schelden's grand repertoire of German drinking songs. In addition, their uniform has the same colour scheme that the Wandelsoc. outfit has, so this looked pretty neat.
 Which was how even Prakke felt, the rotten bastard. Because, in against the agreement that we would finish together since this was the Annual Society March, he'd done a runner at the last rest. He'd been complaining all during the march that he didn't like to wait for others, and had therefore proceeded to quickly march on at the rests at a certain stage, but had nevertheless waited for Henk at that last rest, in response to my voiced discontent about this practice.
 Only to then state 'guys, I'm gonna go do something, be back in a flash' and leave us waiting for him in vain, for over an hour, holding a beer that we got for him. Ridiculese! Of course, we would not otherwise have met those German cops again, since they came in behind us, but the fact that he was already at the finish, smiling alongside Lydia, when we marched across it, merits negative marks.
 That, though, wasn't the worst thing about that finish. The worst thing was that, since this whole affair had made us arrive late for the planned departure of the BavelaarBus, we had to make like hares in order to get to it before it left. Which not only made me forget to procure my metal 'Luxemburg'-strip for the IML-medal to be earned later this year, so that I'll HAVE to return to Diekirch next year, but also made us forgo the sociability of a few hour's worth of drinking and shooting the breeze with likeminded ones. Ne-ver again. I'm sorry Baaf, this was a nice trip, my respects and thanks a lot, but next time I'm a-gonna go back inna train or car, dude.
 Not so this time over so, even before Marco, Jochem and Lydia started the drive back in the Polo, Schelden and I found ourselves on a stiflingly hot coach, that took a long time to reach Utrecht yet. This notwithstanding the fact that the drivers turned out to know a brilliant trick to avoid congestion: leave the highway, make a half circle and get back onto it, to just press the bus in between traffic again just in front of the cause of the congestion. They did this several times and it won us minutes. But, as I said, we took a long time to reach our destination anyhow. Which, of course, gave Schelden the chance to besot the entire bus, a chance he took with both pairs of hands, since they weren't just his, but also those of fellow walker 't Hart from Alphen a/d Rijn. This led to many a grinning regurgitation when, at Schelden's house, we killed a bottle of port afterwards.
To your health gentlemen, lady, excellent walking there. The guns of Diekirch are ours¹. The MESA awaits. ¹ Well not all of ours. The Marche de l'Armée namely knows this weird medal system. It's like this. The possible distances are 1x20, 2x20 and 2x40. 1x20 gets you an otherwise sober medal. 2x20 gets you a medal-with-a-bomb-on (this, next to Lydia, also belongs to Marco, since he marched 1x40 = 2x20). And the 2x40 gets you the medal-with-the-guns-on that Schelden, Prakke and I are allowed to wear. We're talking bronze varieties here. At 5 and 10 times there are silver and gold varieties respectively, but weird things naturally arise if you spend one of your times there doing 1x40 + 1x20, as sometimes happens. Doesn't matter, since the baton is the same in all cases ;-). ² The photos in this report are, as always, and unless externally linked, made by the Wandelsoc. itself, by Marco van Zijntergen and during the second day of marching, to be more precise, this time over. But this time this doesn't go for one of them: the one of Vianden's castle. That was sent to me by Ben Jeursen and I took the liberty of 'abusing' it :-D. |