A series of faces, friends of mine.

I've had time to go through my trip pictures, and picked out some portraits of people we stayed with and became friends with along the way. I didn't get nearly enough photos, and some great people are missing, but they should show up in the video I'll be throwing together over the next week or so. Anyway, here's the list of new people, miss you all.


Cate Drinkorn is studying to be a ship-builder, we met in Hamburg then again in Berlin. She is the most pragmatic DJ I've ever met, she and her sister Jasmine throw queer dance parties in Berlin. Here she's being afraid of thunder. She rides the oldest Dutch city bike I've ever seen.


Next we stayed with Steffe in Bremen, who is working towards being a journalist and takes amazing cell-phone pictures she posts on her blog. She rode her mountain bike on a tour in the winter and I think rode to Amsterdam and back after us.


Hanning Lived with Steffe, hitchhiked, and played the accordion. He has done some cool community acting projects and wants to learn to be a carpenter.


This is Daphne Mang, she was at the end of her studies in Groningen when we met her, she's from outside Athens in Greece!


Stan is the son of Anne-Marie in the tiny town of Laag Zuthem. They live together in a 2 story tiny house, Stan loves video games and speaks amazing English for a 11 year old, once he trusts you. Don't tell him I told you, but he wants to do stand-up when he grows up.


Peter is the nicest guy on the planet, he told us we could stay forever before he even met us. He trained as a physicist and it brought him no joy, so he went off travelling by bike for 4 years. He fell in love with a Chilean girl and hopes to go back to South America someday to start a sustainable farm. In the meantime he lives in a condemned flat with Geert in Utrecht.


Pietra is a beautiful, excited, and adventurous lady, girlfriend of Peter, and also a crazy biker. She was the catylist for our race to Paris. She's a documentary photographer.


This satisfied looking dude is Eelco. He planned the Amsterdam to Paris race and has done it 2-3 years in a row. He's a med student and was studying neurology while we relaxed in Paris.


Jasper was biking through France when he came across the Challis Chateau and decided he wanted to stay forever. He offered his services as chef and has become the Chateau manager, groundskeeper, and cook.


Iwan is the son of Hans and (?), the magical owners of the Chateau. He speaks a babble of French and Dutch, and knows the forests of the Chateau very well.


Bachtyr loves cats. He's an Iranian philosopher and musician, he teaches piano lessons in Paris and lives at the Chateau.


This is Monika, David's flame. She works in a Polish publishing house in Warsaw, she comes to Paris to visit the Chateau's owners. She smiles like an imp, all the time.


Marijane was pragmatic and blunt, an new kitchen help from Amsterdam at the Chateau. Here she's checking out Nike of Samonthrace at the Louvre. I've never known someone so young to seem so old.


My friend Adil in SLC grew up in Paris, here's his mother and brother, of Moroccan descent. They cooked us amazing food and had a Moroccan living room magically transported into the Parisian suburbs.


Adil's sister Lamya was very French in contrast to her Moroccan parents, but in a 21st century way. She married Francis, the son of Chinese immigrants, and they live together in a chic modern flat. She cooks amazingly and taught us to make a Moroccan meal with French dessert. She is an impressive chocolatier and wants to create desserts professionally someday.


In Antwerp we met Bram and Amber, our youngest hosts (tied with Leny, who will show up in the movie). Amber, 15, had done a film project for her end-of-year capstone at a Steiner school. Bram was graduated and beginning classes in Architecture and Engineering, he's the kind of companion I'll see many times in life I think.


We met Gert-Jan in Utrecht back before we met Peter even, but found him again the second time we were there. He owns a tiny boat and loves to tool around the canals in it, beautiful and simple. He is infinitely kind and has traveled all over, saw a bit of himself in us.


We met Els Corporaal in Paris and she immediately invited us to stay in Amsterdam when we arrived. Very nice, very cool, she is a ecological advisor for the parks in her district of Amsterdam. The main park she oversees is a huge long stretch of wild land over an old parceled-up landfill. She travels a lot as well, having gone on a rambunctious year long adventure where she fell in love with an Israeli (or Greek?) guy in Egypt.


Saw this guy, Frank, and had to take his picture. I think the dog's name is Bill.


This is one half of the 2 man show running a great little Italian restaurant in Amsterdam. It was as wide as the doorway and had no menu, just a conversation with the waiter and the cook to feel out what sounded good. We ate like professionals. He wanted to travel and do film stuff, we chatted a while, really solid guy.


Great little street musician whose name I've forgotton, would sing any tune in a french-african accent with a little wheeze, absolutely captivating and summery.


Spanish girls who sang along to Moulin Rouge at the top of their lungs on the train to Berlin.


My main man David Wood, whom I got terribly sick of on the trip but who now I miss.


Yours truly, impersonating Grizzly Adams in the sunset.