An Issue of Trust

First of all this news just in: It's official I'm tired, I raced up to prague and it was exhausting, but I don't want the race to stop, I'm tired of Europe of behind the Iron Curtain, of the remnants of the Third Reich, of Cathedrals, overpriced everything and the ceaseless march of tourists. I now want to get to Valencia as quickly as possible, and there I fear I will crash in an exhausted heap and not move for weeks. I have hit the wall, my mind is decaying I am becoming some kind of tourist animal, I contribute nothing, I do not exist beyond the money I have to spend and 6 months is a long time to live like this. The freedom of ceaseless holiday is become prison and you office jerks don't know how luxurious a life of eating KFC in your underpants on the couch watching monday night offerings from SBS truly is, so take your KFC box and tell it you love it this Monday, for me, for you, for all of us.

A man called Mahmut approached me and asked me the time on my third last day in Istanbul, I told him I didn't have a watch and didn't know. We got to chatting and then (first stupid clue I missed) I eventually reminded him he still didn't know the time, he found someone asked them and then kept walking along and chatting with me.
I noticed an earring drop on the ground, I pointed it out and then pointed to a lady in a red jacket who I thought it belonged to, I don't like yelling unintelligibly in a foreign language but I pointed it out to Mahmut and he chased after the lady. He came back with the earing still in hand and curled it around his little finger, and then we kept on talking. I liked the guy, he was friendly and shit. (the earring keeping was the second clue I missed, who keeps one earring?)
We walked and I achieved my stated purpose, it was incidently about 3 in the afternoon, I bought my chocolate and then Mahmut offered to buy me a drink, I told him I didn't drink, he said coke no problem, if I was hungry I could stop and eat.
I figured we were going to some kebab stand so I agreed, choosing to trust this welcome chatty stranger, he was a nice guy.
Thinking I was heading into a cafe I walked through a doorway into a dark sovietesque, shoebox of a nightclub, my momentum carrying me beyond two large waiters and I knew, from them I had been had.
I had to watch this sad scenario of a scam I had been warned about numerous times unfold. I refused drinks, made an excuse to leave, refused to buy drinks for two homely girls but alas, Mahmut when he asked for the bill was still charged about $600 for their bottle of wine, something I was suddenly expected to deal with.
I thought, 'oh well just endure a beating and get thorwn out' tried suggesting they call the police since I couldn't settle my bill. Refused to help out mahmut, tried to force passage, eventually after much verbal abuse and manhandling they had me reveal the contents of my wallet and took about $100 from me. And then I walked.
I walked to the police who wondered why I was bothering over such a measley sum.
I was perplexed because I felt, well to be honest I was still in the 'trying to say I fucked up without sounding stupid - which is a very hard thing to do' which seems to be the chief human occupation so don't judge me.
Anyway I'm a policemans wet dream, my memory for detail, my ability to sketch and so fourth is so good, but the police just weren't interested.
I felt the bar crew had been stupid for trying to push on with the scam even though they never secured my agreement to buy drinks for anybody including myself.
But alas it was my word against six, so nothing came of it except I wasted 6 hours tring to make a police statement.
Still what peeves me is that I am stupid, for trusting someone nice, that in all the moral people will focus on and expound is 'don't trust people' a statement akin to 'take no risk' and 'stay at home'. Now who would I be to come home and have this as my advice?
I thought fuck it, yes there were specific things I should have done, like take a photo of the guy before hand, or even with the guy, asked more about him, got his history and shit, and just plane not walked into a shady little bar in a sidestreet in the middle of the day. That's what I learned, but I was determined not to learn 'don't trust strangers'
And then about 4-5 weeks pass and I am in Austria, specifically I am exiting Salzburg for Linz, embarking on my longest bike ride yet 125km. I head out right at 10am, stocked up with sugary energy food a map and drinking water, I can't get onto road 1 which should take me directly there, and in winding from nth to east attempting to hit the onramp I eventually wind up following a small alley onto a path through a park.
I take some snaps because it turns out to be picturesque and seems to bend towards a major road which I figure is the one I want.
I follow the bike path and come to a sign that says some place name is in 7km.
So I decide to check the place name on my map, I figure I'm somewhere between the A1 Autobahn which is a no go and the 1 which is a go go, I place myself as somewhere obscured by annoying blue dots on my map.
'What do they mean?' I aks myself and look lazily over at the legend spotting something I had never botherd to look for, a bike road. A road dedicated to bikes that winds its way through the countryside from Salzburg to Linz via lakes and shit. Mindblowing.
I follow it, my luck seeming to have won out again, just like the day before when I dropped my camera and it only took red photographs. I desperately tried to find a camera store that could repair it without causing anymore delay only to find them all closed, where in frustration I hit my camera and it came good. Perfecty good.
Anyway, I don't want to dwell on it too much, but riding through Austrian countryside was truly special, and when I get close to a decent enough computer I will upload pictures to my facebook account.
It was a truly memeroble day and even now as I set in unkempt Prague I long for the warm weather and endless green fields, and smell of cowshit for that well kept Austrian countryside.
I arrived in Linz in a race against dusk, like vampires where chasing me or shit, and had no real problem because the bike roads took me right into the city. But by then I was exhausted.
I pulled open my travel guide to get directions to my hostel, found the address but no further details. I peddled around a bit hoping to spring upon signs directing me or a map of the city.
I had to give up on this the signage was really poor in non historical linz, so I quickly ducked into a net cafe, got the address, put it on a map, got my bearings and headed off.
Unfortunately my bearings didn't reflect true distance and I soon got lost again, heroically I asked directions and got my course corrected. started to find signs that directed me to the hostel, unfortunately the hostel was called 'jagengesthaus' or something and I confused this with a sign that pointed uphill to a place called 'jagenmayhoff' which after ten minutes off steep ascent turned out to be an art gallery, I cruised back down hill, near exhausted, near despair into the relieving lobby of the hostel, only 50m from where I had originally lost track.
It was 10.15, it was then that I read a sign saying the reception closed at 9pm, something my guidebook one lonely planet guide neglected to mention. Infact the lack of opening times and services in Europe is I think the thing more likely to catch a naive foreigner out than anything else, supermarkets being closed on Sunday, infact every sunday is as dead as Easter Sunday in a lot of Europe.
Anyway, I got out the guidebook and moved to next cheapest on the list.
I got back into the city around 11pm, rang the doorbell of the guest house, no answer, and everything in town was shutting for the night, no tourist information no nothing.
So I resolved I would have my first night outdoors.
On my way to Venice I had met a guy who had offered me accomadation for as long as I stayed in Padova Italy due to our shared enthusiams for cycling, I thought here was a perfect chance to trust someone but never took up the offer because frankly I was too tired to deal with people at all when I got there and crashed in a hostel, slept most of the next day and felt dissapointed but merciful on myself.
Now it was 3 am, I had 4 chapters left of 20,000 leagues under the sea, was wearing every bit of warm clothing I had, sitting in a deserted plaza in Linz and the warm spring night was quickly becoming cold.
Streets are really deserted in Linz at night, once or twice a reveler (not drunk or dissorderly though) would cruise through on the way home, then a guy rode almost past on his bike, then circled back towards me and asked if I was on a journey.
I explained my situation hoping he would leave me alone, then he offered m a room. At 3am when its turning cold and you are all powerful from a diet of riding and carrying a 40kg bike up staircases and over bridges for a month I said 'I'll check it out if I may'
I asked the guy who he was, noted his address when we reached it, the room had a lock on the door and a bed and I wasn't saying no. Georg my benefactor gave me a towell, stuff to drink, made breakfast, gave me a phone, maps everything, let me use his shower and I washed my hair for the first time in six weeks.
I stayed two nights, bought him some chocolate and some Australia pins, and was really glad I trusted a stranger, not insensibly, but the fact was, that I trusted someone who seemed nice, and was nice, because if we punish nice people, by not trusting them, just because not nice people can do a fair imitation of them, then I think we are all fucked.
Yes I was vulnerable, but we are all vulnerable to things far worse, and that far worse is a life without risk.
Yes I'm tired of travelling, but I am also transformed, seasned, hardened, tasty.
As thomas Jefferson puts it: I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

So let trust be your default setting, and don't scold people for trusting.