follow the heretic
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This post is about a 20km walk from Lich to Laubach. I follow the Luther Pilgrims’ Way for a while, then I end up at a birthday party.
I ended up staying in the town of Lich for two days. The hotel was cheap and comfortable, the beer was good (Licher Brewery was from here), and I even went to the cinema and saw a movie.
Feminism WTF
I had been looking forward to that movie for a while. It was a documentary called Feminism WTF. Sadly, it wasn’t very good.
There was one scene that I liked, though: they presented test persons with babies dressed in “gender-coded” outfits and asked them to play with the babies. The test persons would then play with the “male” baby using toy cars and mechanical toys, and with the “female” baby using dolls and toy kitchens. In the end it was revealed that the babies’ genders didn’t actually correspond to their “gender-coded” outfits. Show don’t tel
The rest of the documentary consisted almost exclusively of long, dogmatic monologues and dancing scenes. The message wasn’t bad, it was just clumsily made.
eastbound and down
Aaaaaanyway, so I walked out of Lich, and I didn’t walk north, in the direction of my home, no. Instead I turned east. Why, you ask? Well, why did I ever do anything? Why had I chosen to walk through Alsace this summer, even though it was clearly not on my way?
As it turned out I was following the Luther Pilgrims’ Way for a while. Martin Luther had been declared a heretic at the Reichstag in Worms in 1521, upon which he had journeyed to the Wartburg to hide there. The Luther Pilgrims’ Way attempted to retrace Luther’s route, and I, the Catholic, Caboose-pulling man of the Pope, was on it.
no, no, no, no, yes!
The clouds hung low today, and they looked dark and heavy. But there wasn’t much rain for most of the day. Still, I didn’t want to camp in the open.
So once I got to the town of Laubach I asked at a farm if I could stay in their barn. No, they said, no space in the barn. At this point it was raining heavily. I went to a second farm. No. A third farm. Same procedure. Same procedure.
About two hours later, I was at a birthday party in a campground. My stuff was in a communal kitchen where I was going to spend the night. I had a beer in my hand, and a gentleman called Helmut, who had just turned 60-something and was finally retired, was trying to tell me something.
“Eat and drink as much as you want!” yelled Helmut over the noise of the party, “it’s all on me!”
pictures
the walk from Lich to Laubach:
old town of Lich
rain clouds hovering over the road
y’all know I have to come back and pick up the camera for every one of these shots, eh?
I sit where a lot of yellow leaves have fallen.
Luther Pilgrims’ Way
cows
farmer near Röthges
sleepy cow
autumn road
The Longest Way walking through autumn
no barn in Laubach
my camp in the kitchen of Caravanpark Laubach
it’s party time
Helmut at his party
with Dirk of Caravanpark Laubach