23rd july 2007 - braila

the sun has been shining down relentlessly on our ship for two weeks now. because it is made of iron, it willingly absorbs the heat during the day and then gives it out again at night, inwardly too. we are pretty knackered. a few of us escape to the beach opposite. it's actually a beautiful sandy beach, but it is unfortunately littered with plastic containers, beer bottles and various rubbish. people don't even take the trouble to throw their rubbish into the bushes, they let it all fall where they are. a few seagulls laugh down at me as they fly over (incidentally the cruise ships dispose of their glass by shredding it into little shards and tipping it into the danube. back at home too!)

swimming is only cooling while you are in the water. a minute later you're dry and a minute after that you start sweating again.
in orsova - according to reports - it was 48ºC yesterday and a few old people dropped dead in the street. there have been a total of 17 deaths from the heat in romania in the past few days. the whole thing makes me think of the expeditions made by odysseus, darwin and humbolt. it really feels like one of the last adventures of its kind and it's taking place in the middle of europe. we are discovering the boundaries, our physical ones included, moving along them, for ever crossing them. it's anything but just a walk.

in the evening we have the concert with loredana. we have had the bank at the docking point cleaned specially, but someone from the municipality has still forbidden people to enter the 15-metre wide strip and so the large audience is a long way from the stage. perhaps for this reason, or perhaps because it is so muggy, perhaps because they weren't in such a good mood, perhaps because karandila set the bar so high and we accordingly had such expectations of our guests ..., their show isn't as brilliant as it was in orsova.