Zine Olive Green: True stories from someone that never thought her life would ever look like this

A zine about one person's personal travels around Europe. First chapter excerpt: I’ve been home for 2 days and I already look at my backpack with envious eyes. Having a hard time readjusting to the sedentary life. It’s only a matter of time before I jump in a train again and make my way towards more adventures. I guess I should start with the beginning of this story. It all started at the end of May. I was sitting home drinking beer and making pizzas with a few of my housemates, when Peter walked in. I had met Peter a year earlier when he first came to my old squat, but I never expected to see him again. Peter is a Canadian bum that basically lives in his backpack. Ugly, destroyed and very old backpack that he’s been carrying for about ten years. Always by his side, his dog Lou is an endless target for compliments because of his bright green eyes. I was very shy to approach him at first, because he has the lifestyle i’ve always wanted but have always lacked the courage to embrace. I saw him as some kind of surreal being. Little did I know he would be in my bed by the end of the night, and the next four days. On the fifth day, he looked at me and said: “I’m going to meet up with some friends in Berlin, wanna come?” My brain stopped working for a second and I answered, laughing: “You can’t be serious dude, I can’t leave my place just like this, I have stuff to plan, and I’ve only been hanging out with you for like 5 days what tells me you’re not some sort of twisted serial killer that targets girls with dreadlocks that haven’t showered in 3 weeks?” And so obviously the next day we were on a train towards Germany, because my desire for adventure was stronger than my anxiety. And I wish I could say all went well and I adjusted instantly to this lifestyle but that would be a lie. #1 Munich-Nürnberg-Leipzig-Berlin-Stuttgart The first weeks we traveled together would go like this: I would wake up super early and go walk around with my dog, waiting for Peter to wake up, then, we would get breakfast, and then we would go sit on the street and busk for a few hours. Every day a different city, and every night we would argue about where to sleep because I was actually terrified of sleeping on the streets. My brain would instantly bring up rape stories and mysterious disappearances of traveling girls every time we would try and settle down for the night. Not only was it fucking terrible for me, but I could clearly feel I was being a pain in his ass. Which made me feel even worse. Aside from the night-time anxiety, everything else was just like I imagined it, maybe even better. We got around by taking trains without paying, and getting millions of fines that we would never have to pay because we are not registered german citizens. Peter calls it “creating train drama” because we always get yelled at by train employees and sometimes they call the cops on us, 2 but none of them can actually do more than check our passports and forbid us from creating more train dramas. (WHICH NEVER WORKS LOL SUCK MY DICK DEUTSCHE BAHN) Click to expand...