Christmastime In the Bankster Capital of Europe - Mainhattan!

So I had left Berlin to the Berliners and got on a train heading south to Frankfurt.

Just in time for the Celebrations of Love and sharing!
Christmas-time in Germanyoh so romantic
The Bankster and Fraudster Capital of Europe, well there are nice people there aswell in the shadows of the money stacks (sky scrapers) built of blood sweat and tears of the people...

Christmas with the family and back to my favorite food dumpsters in Europe so far.
'Christ-mess' in the dumpsters, what a sight!!!!
What Incredible Riches!

Alnatura Bio Super Natur Markt in Frankfurt/Sachsenhausen, on Heiligabend
that's on Christmasday, 24.12.2009
I was born in this part of town!

What a feast I was rewarded with for no good reason, but let me tell you that I stuffed all my bike bags front and back and a backpack and still had to leave most of the goods behind.
Apparently Alnatura, run by anthroposophic principles, although not nearly all food sold there was grown following biodynamic principles of food production (a system of Agriculture developed by Rudolf Steiner about 100 years ago, with some of the toughest organic standards anywhere)

At home with the loot, loads of oranges had to be made into orange juice,
Christmas day 2009

Knowing that stores close for a couple of days during Christmas, I was curious to see what I would find in the dumpster at Alnatura on the 26th
And even though they give a lot of their food that cannot be sold to organisations feeding the needy and homeless, and bless them for not locking their dumpsters, so whatever else they kick out can at least be gleaned. It still strikes as fairly sick when one opens the containers and 30-40 day old loaves of delicious speckless organic whole grain breads see the light of day once again and are happily emerging for their last trip across town.

Alnatura in Frankfurt/Bornheim 26th of December 2009

There was a mountain of bread, enough to feed a hundred hungry souls, loads of nice bananas and oranges and mandarins, in fact there was so much I didn't have room on the bike for all of it. That really irked me, it was already 4 PM, soon it would be dark, my parents had not enough freezer space to take care of 30+ loaves of excellent wholesome eco bread......I thought hard for a minute, and an inspiration came to me, hey! it struck me that I had to still ride across the center of the city to make it back "Home", and usually when one rides that way there are homeless people hanging out in the pedestrian shopping districts, under roofs, with their mattress camps, often in a forest of empty beer bottles, I decided to load as much of the food as i could and pay them a visit and share the loot with them on this midwinter day, second day of Christmas!

Inspired by Indian Mystic Sathya Sai Baba, and the account i had just read about him by social scientist Erlendur Haraldson from the University of Iceland in Reykjavik, following quote came to mind, see picture from the book, page 124....

"Whether you pray to Christ or someone else, it does not matter to me. I have no caste, no creed, nothing like that. Whoever has a real love of God, I am always with him."

All I am trying to say is that I didn't do this out of any particular religious mood, I am just human, and feel great appreciation for these creations, even as beautiful loaves, the lovely joyous smile of a ripe banana, well travelled from the warm hills of central america, and so i can feel the appreciation someone who has no home and nothing to eat would have to receive such blessings, so I am just striking a connection between these people in the streets and the fate of that grain, all products of the same Love Principle that creates all we can see and feel and be!
It's all around us this love, miracles, even within us, and often we cannot notice it anymore...

The Title of the Book is Modern Miracles, An Investigative Report on Psychic Phenomena Associated with Sathya Sai Baba and can be found online, complete at google books.

This was a small service I was led to perform, and I was thanked by then few men who I found to give the the bread and fruit to, and it warmed my heart, hopefully theirs and their bodies too.

Passing the old footbridge, named 'Eiserner Steg', across the river a while later, a russian Musician is the last recipient to be found, deserving of the bread. Smiling broadly when he learns I want to give him bread instead of money: "bread 's always good" he mutters while I also pass some bananas and apples into his briefcase. He continues to lighten up the gloomy darkening Christmas afternoon with his joyous play of russian folk tunes on his worn accordeon, such a great and underrated service to fellow human beings sitting there in the cold, spreading love.....

The rest of the bread and fruit I take home with me, the freezers are full but luckily some friends are coming tomorrow and take me along to the dge of the alps tomorrow and so we'll just take all that food down there and celebrate new years down there in the beautiful Allgäu region, in the city of Kempten......

read more about the dumpsters of Kempten and New Years Day in my next post

To Berlin and on to Frankfurt

From Rostock to Berlin I sit on a train, too far, to cold I decided, to be riding the bike all the way, to Berlin and Frankfurt and see family and friends.

Couchsurfing.org has once again proven invaluable. I had hoped initially to travel via Gdansk in Poland, and contacted 3 different couchsurfers in that city where my mom was born in 1940.
I had never been there and thus very curious. Everyone i wrote to replied and was very enthusiastic in meeting or hosting me, but i had calculated a bit to tight and so i decided last minute, due to weather to change my route and bypass Poland, and go to Germany directly, sorry folks, and so much thanks for your forthcoming, I'll look you up next time.
So I contacted a friend in Rostock, regarding a visit, but 1 hour before arriving in Rostock after 25hrs on the ocean @10PM cell phone reception was reestablished and a message from my friend reached me almost last minute, informing me his business trip to Bremen had taken longer and he wouldn't be back.

SOO lucky me, I was just sitting and talking with an interesting fellow traveller and Couchsurfer from Slovakia named Robert F., who had arranged to stay with a couchsurfing host in Rostock, and upon hearing about my situation without a warm place to sleep, it was minus 10 degrees out there, and although i had slept out at -40 before during my years in Alaska, I'm no longer such a fan of cold weather, and the troubles that come with it,
offered to send an sms to his host asking if the very same could accomodate another Couchsurfer.
The reply was an almost instantaneous: YES! Sure, why not, of course! That's what hospitality is all about!
So all was well again in an instant! Thanks to these great people we live with on this planet.

Arriving in Berlin I sought out the Cycling Gypsies, a footloose Quattro, of world citizen travellers from Australia and Canada, whom I had come across through the couchsurfing website while on Åland.
I had invited them to come visit me with Åsa and check out the Cannibal Tub, but they had to decline because entering Finland from Sweden on the way to Estonia would have meant excruciating troubles due the rules @ entering the country with dogs.
They had been travelling nearly 17000 kms by bicycle through Western Europe since 2008, together with their canine friends Paco and Jack and were then trying to be one step ahead of full winter heading south through Scandinavia behind them.
Then I had received an invitation to join them for a few days in Berlin on my way south, where some other couchsurfers, worldcitizens, and long distance bikers, who had come across their blog had invited them to house-sit for them in East Berlin, while heading to South America for a couple of months.
So Now I was here ready to take them upon the offer, and looking forward to a few days in germany's large but friendly capital, and check out the organic supermarket dumpsters if accessible together with Fin and Zoa.
Still -12 degrees cold I made my way through the city, checking dumpsters as I encountered them on my random course across this Metropolitan area.

The cycling Gypsies without bikes! Yikes!

Their neigborhood had a few organic supermarkets, which we approached, trying to find the backside and the dumpsters, but no success. It's often a bbit tricky in cities, the backyards are often only accessed through lockable gates, only accessible by the residents, so in the short days in Berlin I felt a bit frustrated not having the local knowledge to the locations of some good containers. Of course in an ideal world I would hope not to find any waste, with food businesses well organized, but I really doubt that that was the reason for not finding much.

The gypsies got a kick out of it anyway, perhaps I did inspire a new hobby nontheless, and it that way a lot of food getting eaten right from the brink of destruction.

On my way to the trainstation i did however pass some supermarkets from the Edeka chain, which seems to not lock their dumpsters no matter where in Germany I found one, so there was a whole bunch of stuff, but the severe cold had already finished of the food, the fruit and veggies although in otherwise fair shape judging from the looks were all frozen solid.

Sadly only frozen Veggies and Fruit at Edeka in Berlin Reinickendorf

So I left Berlin to the Berliners and got on a train heading south to Frankfurt.
The Bankster and Fraudster Capital of Europe, well there are nice people there aswell in the shadows of the money stacks made with blood sweat and tears


Just in time for a rich dumpster Christmas!

Read more in the next Post!!

Wrapping UP! - Heading South to Germany via Helsinki

Wrapping UP! - Heading South via the East, from Åland to Berlin, Frankfurt and Kempten via Helsinki and Rostock

Well mid December had arrived and finally also the snow that looked like it came with the intent of staying. That day was a day of mixed feelings, for the past three months here had been very educational for me and others and had brought me in contact with people i now would like to call good friends, and who I hope to not loose touch with despite the ever restless-pressing on life of a migratory bird, a "little" delayed in catching up with the warmer weather.
Winter had already managed to drive a huge wedge in between me and the areas above freezing and even in those had replaced the sun with clouds and rain.
Without winter tires on the bicycle, and just a three season sleeping bag, i wasn't exactly eager to go camping and riding bike extensively.

Having said goodbyes to my friends, especially Åsa and her kids, I cycled in to Mariehamn to see the local Emmaus second hand shop, still wearing shorts, despite the snow, pushing the limits of the fall (officially 'till Dec 21st).

Needed to have a look for something warmer for my feet, having to return the loaned Nokia felt lined gumboots to Åsa's mom, and with only Birkenstocks to my name, with the help of a friendly curious russian lady named Svetlana, originally from bittercold Ural Mountains, the suture between Europe and Asia/Siberia, I was blessed with a pair of knee high finnish leatherboots, light and brandnew, which she found for me in the back. The price was right and I was able to look forward to riding my bike in the snow.

Afterwards I headed down for a last dumpsterdive at City Livs, the friendly keepers of which supermarket are totally fine with people taking stuff from their compost bins, while their greedy competitiors owning the largest and most plentiful stores in Mariehamn and even all of Åland, namely Mathishallen and Kantarellen of the K-Market chain who had begun locking their dumpsters and thus making sure the perfectly good food they decide they don't want anymore will get destroyed for sure, (see also previous post). They don't want people to know how wasteful they are, probably out of shame for wasting so much precious food wrought from the earth in local fields or distant mysterious lands. Most people when they learn about the scale of the waste behind their food stores, are very shocked and surprised and get very upset.

Even most employees that i have ever talked to when i met someone working there while dumpsterdiving, especially now that the stores have locked their dumpsters in response to my reuse and rescue activities and media attention, will side with me and are apologetic. They find it morally wrong anyway to throw away all this food as part of their job, often themselves not able to afford the food they are ordered to throw out in masses, to add insult to injury are they allowed to take home any.

City Livs, Mariehamn, Åland 14.Dec 2009

As you can see all just awesome finds again, Pineapples and loads of Fairtrade bananas, and a heap of red and yellow peppers that perhaps had to make way for a new shipment of perhaps slightly better quality (hard to fathom the logic behind all this from the condition of much of the thrown out food alone), , I couldn't find much wrong with the peppers at hand and took some to another friends house to go into my fare-well dinner.

Perhaps I will miss the peace and quiet and light of Åland and my beloved north sooner than i think, but there isn't much i can do about the cold except to move further south at this point......

Ferry to Helsinki, 15.12.2009, all of a sudden a large fog bank near the mainland Finland is ready to swallow the whole ship

Dec 15 meets me in Helsinki with sun and minus 12 degrees C, my bike freewheel mechanism, replaced only 3 months ago in Tallinn Estonia with a new one, that has made funny sounds basically from the start, is not happy about the cold fiiniish teemperaaatuures.
The grease in it is not winter-ready, and gets to stiff for the mechanisms to engage and all of a sudden there is no more resistance, and no go.
I find a cool bike shop on my explorations on Drumsö/Lautasaari, an island west of downtown, sporting an Xtracycle in the snow outside, as if to say, "we are different"!
Xtracycle is one of the best allround Bike upgrades, that lets you carry more than you need to own in a super fun way!
The owner and staff of the shop were extremely helpful in injecting magic potions and antifrost juices into the cassette, and voila, all is well, and they refused payment!

www.pyorahuolto.com

Meripuistotie 5 / Sjöalle´n 5
Lauttasaari - Helsinki / Drumsö - Helsingfors
GSM: 040-5924664
GSM: 040-5456859

I was lucky enough to have my tall finnish boots from the second hand shop, they proove to be exrtremely breathable, windproof and warm, so at no time do i have cold feet, only my knitted mittens are no match for the cutting wind, but with a few tricks I manage quite well, and manage to enjoy the 25 km ride from downtown to the other ferry terminal on freshly falling big-flake-snow on Helsinki's excellent network of bike trails.
By chance i had found a detailed map, which shows them all in detail and the whole greater Helsinki area. I obtained the map for free from a wall with information materials for travellers and locals alike, right in City Hall, downtown!!




On the way to the North Sea Harbor, I pass a few shops, but luckily I still have enough bananas and homemeade sourdough bread to make it nicely all the way to Germany.
Here is the backside of a K-Market shop in a suburbian area east of the city.
They really are afraid people could get something out of their trash.
It's impossible to make use of their waste in any way. Electric gates, it's a whole ghetto in there.
Saddening, the disregard of Turbo Capitalism!


K-Markets lonely NO-Obtainium ghetto, Helsinki Dec 15, 2009

arriving at the southbound Tallink ferry @8:30 PM


"Looks like Gotland!"
It is Gotland, just had passed the lights of Visby, dawn Dec 16, 2009

And sunset arrives a few hours later, the ferry which is mostly transporting large freight-hauling trucks was surprisingly empty, perhaps due to the so-callled economic crisis, empty lounges and hallways made for a very quiet crossing, if one ignores the fact that Tallink in an effort to cut costs, piled everyone in as few cabins as possible during nights, less cleanup!
Only one problem, when you have to sleep in one room with overweight snoring russian truckers!

Tulips are Forever! and Capitalist Saboteurs

December 8th 2009
food Locked in! reusers Locked Out!
Capitalist Saboteurs strike Again!!

One of my last routine inspections and food recovery runs on December 8th, 2009(before leaving the archipelago for sunnier climes) to Kantarellen revealed that Capitalist Greed, perhaps it was not greed but rather sloppy thinking, has now led to the closure the largest and thus possibly the most wasteful Åland Food Stores' dumpsters.
With the mere investment of whatever it takes to buy and install 5 brandnew brass locks
Owner of Kantarellen, who almost operates a monopoly of foodstores on Åland, has successfully worked to ensure the destruction of all the perfectly good food, certainly worth many thousands of Euros annually disposed of in 5 green,one cubicmeter each plastic compostable matter bins.

Here the Proof, that's what it looked like


Here the contact details for the store, if you want to let them know how you feel about this deliberate attempt at stopping public utilisation of valuable resources.
First it was Mathishallen now Kantarellen, same owner!
Perhaps you feel compelled to stop shopping there or at any other of their stores on the islands in favor of City Livs, which does not mind people recovering what the shop cannot sell.

Kantarellen
Nya Godbyvägen

Tel. 018-32840
Fax. 018-328412
E-post info@kantarellen.ax

Or make suggestions how they can change their operation into a more modern style, reflecting the needs of our times to use resources wisely!
Remember, we all pay for the waste and a destroyed planet and climate..


Oh well, on i went downtown to grab a few heads of lettuce and such tasty nutritious things from City Livs Dumpsters and then a little visit at Nya Åland and Ålandstidningens offices to report the locking of the containers to the reportes who covered the story originally.



Boy was I surprised and delighted to see these Tulips again, the ones i pulled out of the City Livs dumpster when with the reporters from Ålandstidningen.
Tone Nordling received them and took them to the office and placed them in a vase. That was on Dec3rd, so now almost a week later they still look like they are holding on to their life with a good posture. Excellent for castaway flowers!!!