The story starts in 1990, during uncertain times; I was only 18 and the wall of Berlin had started to crumble the previous year. I was done with school for various reasons that weren’t – for most of them- under my control. I was thirsty for freedom and even attempted to hitchhike to Berlin to witness the unbelievable, feeling history right there, right then. Sergio and my parents put an end to my crazy adventure in the making, saying that it wasn’t safe for a 17 year old to thumb 1500 kilometres across France, Belgium and Germany in order to see heavily tagged pieces of concrete being torn apart by overwhelmed Germans; I was told that it was their day and I was far too young to take such a “walk about”. I talked to Sarah, one of my classmates I fancied at the time, if she would come with me at the summer’s end of school leaving party. She was tempted and smiled awkwardly with her heavy duty dental braces she was trying to hide but told me that her parents were very conservative and would never allow such a thing. I understood then that it wasn’t meant to be, I rang her one more time to be sure, telling her that my Grand Father was positioned in Berlin during the blockade, that my Aunt had been born there and it would be terrific! But I could feel her Dad – also an army man- breathing on her neck and listening to his little girl’s conversation, forbidding her to ever see me again. He probably knew too much. I went to the big school, abandoning that little folly before deserting from the grotesque French National Education system that was tempering with my dreams.
Hungry Breton 