Louvain-la-Neuve - Istanbul by hitchiking

Hi everybody,

A short message in my "international English", hence full of mistakes... Just a few words about my trip between my city in Belgium and Istanbul, 1000 times bigger than Louvain-la-Neuve in terms of population! In order to attend the 6th European Social Forum, I decided to raise my thumb along the way, during 8 days in total. I've met during this trip so many nice persons that it's already difficult to remember all names. Fortunately, I took the habbit of writing a diary during my travels and this helps my memory a lot! You will find in my first post in French some pictures of my hosts, some giving me a seat (sometimes broken like in Svetoslav's truck!), some a place to sleep like Gabi from Couchsurfing, or Dilyan, from Bulgaria. Crossing Europe from West to East, until this emblematic limit of Europe at the Bosphorus coast in Istanbul, I was asking questions about politics, agriculture, and family. I could find few regions of preserved ecological agriculture, excepted maybe in Transylvania. However, from the discussions, I could feel there is a recent awareness in eastern countries about this topic. People are missing tasty products and feel more and more the social effects of the european policies. In Bulgaria, I've met Elena and Ilhian, active against GMO. In their campaign of protest in the whole country they got a massive support, resulting in a prohibition of GMO's culture in Bulgaria. After this trip that showed once again how hitchiking is a good way to meet people, I arrived in Istanbul on the 28th of June, my first international social forum beginning on the 1st of July.