Guru Geri in the Netherlands

My first real trip abroad (apart from a transit through the GDR and a day in East Berlin in 1978) was in 1979 Holland, the land of dreams for freaks. The border was only 70 km away, Groningen as the nearest stoner town (coffee shop) only one hour by car. My first trip was with Wolfgang, Hermann and Georg. Wolfgang just had his driver's license and an old car. We wanted to make a round trip. The first night directly after border crossing was on a field. We put up a tent in the wild. In the morning the surprise was not bad: we had slept in a field with hemp (food hemp). This was the holy land of the potheads, as in our dreams (I should mention that potheading was absolutely usual, but I would not call myself a pothead, because it was rather exciting as a means of problem solving to understand. Here the scene was differentiated exactly. After we had covered ourselves with some leaves, we drove on the way to Amsterdam. Of course the goal was the Leidseplein and the Vondelpark, also freak-zentrum. Of course, we were addressed immediately in hashish, which we blue-eyed and inexperienced Germans bought immediately (much too expensive). Later - back in Germany - it turned out that it was shoe polish. So we smuggled shoe polish over the border. Was not particularly heroic towards our friends at home. 

• On our first trip abroad the car broke down (generator), of course, but we fought our way through, after all we had been all alone abroad.
  
• Because Holland was so close to East Frisia and Hanover, I was very often in Groningen, Amsterdam and other cities at the beginning of the eighties. In Amsterdam Barbara and I knew the kraker scene quite well and always had accommodation (sleep in, Vondel-Kerk or in other squatted houses). Was an awesome time with lots of adventure as anarcho. We had no money but a lot of time and few problems with cheapest accommodations and living conditions.
• After the Hanover time the trips to Holland became less. Only in 1990 I went there again with Klaudia. We had rented a week in October into a holiday house on the island Schiermonikok and had tasted the bed fully. Was so to speak the beginning of our box.
• With Klaudis WG from Ermschwert we celebrated Christmas 1990/Sylvester on Ameland. Apart from that I have been there later with travel groups (e.g. with a group of Australian farmers 1999) or myself on the way to the Amsterdam airport Schiphol shortly. It's a beautiful city, but it's not enough to drive there.
• In 2007 I spent three days at a conference (11th International Bioland Poultry Conference) near Aarhus in a hotel located in a former sanatorium, beautiful facility, good quality. This somewhat wooded area is scenically beautiful, but also not very earth-shattering.
• 2011 on the return journey from South Africa one day in Amsterdam.
• 2014 extra because of a picture with Klaudi via France, Luxembourg, Belgium to Holland to take a picture for my photo book "World of Food and Farming". This happened near Venlo. 2014 in December one more day in Holland in Wolvast to meet Louis Bolk representatives: Preparation of the planned visit of the Dutch royal couple to Trenthorst in March 2015.
• In 2018 I spent 4 days in Friesland, with IFOAM World board, on Excursion on organic dairy farms and an AVALON Organic Conference in Oosterwalde.
  
• 2021: trip to WUR (Wageningen) to agree about the joint PhD for Enno with some colleagues. Again I gave a lecture at the Avalon congress in Friesland.