Entries about theo jansen

This blog began with this trip. I started writing every week or so, and kept it going through the US, India and SE Asia. The nature of the travel changed, waves gave way to trains, tracks to wheels, and still I wrote. Yet now, in this final leg of the journey, it feels more difficult and cumbersome to write of what has been; but lets try!

After some months of zig zagging through Europe, finding love and not, I sit on a café in Barcelona. Last entry I had just left Romania and sped towards The Hague. Since then I have lost trains, visited friends, met Theo Jansen, got to Paris in time to recover my new credit card, worked in Belgium, and crossed France. Not bad, ey?

Few things will make you feel more stupid and impotent than getting on the wrong train, and realizing it too late. It's just money, you tell your silly self, breathing deeply to stop your heart from bursting through your eyes, as you contemplate the thought of spending the night on a Czech train station. But there will be another train, everything works out in the end, if you only let it flow. Getting on the wrong side of the platform cost me a bit over a hundred euros. Not a mistake I'll make again soon, you can be assured of that.

So after a week of trains I got to the Netherlands in time for the beach demonstration. I biked from Rotterdam to The Hague; it was a windy day, not too good for biking, but just what you need to see a Strandbeest walk.

For the creator of a life form, Theo Jansen is incredibly human. He gave his rehearsed talk and demonstration just as playfully and smiling as if it was the first time he talked about the subject. He loves his walking beasts even when they refuse to behave properly. Only his props betray how many times he has shown them, the torn paper and old tubes. I have seen his presentation before on TED, analyzed his design and spent hours looking at diagrams. Still, it is another thing to see the beasts live, walking in front of you or carrying them on your shoulder down the beach.
“Yes, send me pictures!” he said, when told I wanted to build a vehicle with his mechanism. And I will, after I figure out how! The design is not ready to leave the beach, as he put it: “they don't like the rough terrain, just the hard, flat sand.” Well, guess that's where I come in, no? A project is in the works! Just need to settle down for a bit and make it happen.

Then I made it to Paris. Three years later, I sat on the same table I sat that first time. St. Christopher's Inn, Northern Paris. A lot has happened in this time. Many roads and countries have seen my feet, on many floors has my backpack rested. That orange rucksack is the only thing that's the same, all else has changed, the carried and the carrier. I met with the past in Paris, had coffee with it, with her, with them. We walked the streets and talked of the future. Then I left, glad to live in the present.

After a year abroad, I must say, I'm quite exited about returning to Mexico. Two years ago I got depressed after buying the ticket back. Not this time though, now I can only think of all the friends and family and food! I don't know how long I'll stay there. At first I said two months, but with projects and birthdays and weddings coming up, there is no estimate I can give anymore. I guess it will be the same as always, a week at a time, living each day until the road calls again.

But for now, Barcelona! I got here planning to spend a mere handful of days, but then heard the talk: I arrived just in time for Las Fiestas de Gracia. And after seeing everyone getting ready for it, streets being closed a week in advance, people making decorations out on the sidewalks, posters appearing on walls... Tension is building everywhere in the Gracia neighborhood, it feels ready to explode. I guess I could hang around a few days, no? Right before crossing the Atlantic, completing this first trip around the world.

And now here are two photos of Arq café, because they are awesome, and it is my most favouritest of places in Rotterdam.