hitching to münster

i had already contacted my couchsurfing host to let her know i was going to be hitching to münster, and i was confident to make it in a day. i was at the hitching point at 9.30 a.m. six hours later, i was still there!! mad as hell of course, but i had to calm down cos it was no use to get angry, i mean, this is hitching after all, there are good days and bad days. but six fucking hours? this was a bad day for sure. ( i was once waiting three days hitching to katherine from tennent's creek in northern terrorities, australia... but that's another story!) finally, a small car pulls up, i didn't even ask where he was going, i just clamboured in happy to have finally got a lift. claudio was his name, an italian engineer now living in czech republic. says a lot that he was a foreigner in this country too. i asked him to drop me off at the services on the motorway before his destination, plzen.


after 45 minutes or so asking at the pumps, i got a lift from a german guy, stefan, to the next services, just before the czech-german border. he was going to germany but the wrong direction for me, and i had to be strong to refuse the longer ride into germany. an hour or so at these services, lots of traffic but no luck, wrong direction or didn't want to take me. i got talking to one african guy hanging around at the pumps and he said he was going to nürnberg with some other people, and so i decided to ask the driver. jon, from prague, was driving his friend and another passenger to bonn, and i had the feeling that this was a mitfahrgelegenheit trip. i asked anyway, and jon said he had to ask the others, which he did... "i can play some drum rhythms for you...", i added to promote myself. it worked. i squeezed into the back with my rucksack on top of me and one of the other guys holding onto my drum. first services in germany is good for me, i had told jon. but as we approached these services just after amberg, jon was hinting that he would like to take me further. they were going to nürnberg to drop one guy off and pick up another passenger, and as we were going there, jon changed his mind and said it would not be fair to the others to take me further. i could see he was torn between wanting to help me out more and being fair to his paying passengers. in the end, we agreed that i would get out at the first services on the a3 when they got back onto the motorway, not that far out of nürnberg. i was happy that i was on the right motorway to frankfurt and we said our goodbyes.


i got another lift, from wolfgang, and it was a chance to practice my very rusty german as he spoke no english. i got dropped off at the services before frankfurt and after sussing out that there was not so much traffic now to ask, i walked into the forest a little and slept rough that night. it was a surprisingly warm night considering it was the end of november.


in the morning, i got up at first light, drew up a sign for a45 and stood by the exit road. not so much traffic, but i would get all of them (the ones at the restaurant, the pumps, and the truckers), i reasoned, rather than asking the very few at the pumps. it was a good tactic cos after half an hour, a truck stopped for me. i climbed into the cab, happy to be away so fast.


jürgen was his name, a trucker for 30 years. again, just german, but no worries. it was a relatively slow lift, but long. to the services before the a1 at dortmund. there, i had my sign for a1 already drawn out, and again waited at the exit road. 5 minutes later, thomas gave me a lift to münsterland services outside münster.


from here, i walked down the service road to a main road 6kms from the centre of münster, and another 10 minute wait for my last lift right to the centre, courtesy of a tamil guy. by the look of his face, i think he was surprised to see me hitching there, but he said nothing, just asked me where i was from. "religious music from south india", he indicated to the music from the cd player. "very relaxing", i said. it was good to end this hitching trip like this after such a lousy start from prague!

prague.... again

helena was helena. we were still fighting about chappatis! of course, this was all symbolic. she was on her way to india and needed a travelling companion. problem is that our ways of travelling are not compatible. she prefers a certain level of home comforts and the direct flight there, i prefer the rough and tumble of adventurous overland travel. india is always calling but it's not the time for me now. there was no room for compromise.


the autumn was in full swing, the trees more or less denuded of their leaves, and it was some beautiful colours to see in the forest... when i could be motivated to leave the house. she was sick and i was not being very helpful... i got the feeling she was milking it a little. the games we play.
after ten days of being holed up in branik, i made my escape. we got the bus together to smichov and said our goodbyes. i took the tube to nove butovice and the hitching point to plzen and germany.

berlin

another uneventful bus trip from copenhagen to berlin, via the ferry from gedser to rostock. except, of course, our bus gets pulled over by the pigs after it gets off the ferry. and mine was the only passport they took to radio in. wilkommen nach deutschland. at kaiserdamm, so began the first of my usual cat and mouse games with the bvg ticket inspection teams that rove the metropolitan transport system, looking for fare dodgers like myself. i found a used ticket, it´s valid for 2 hours from the time stamped. i had 10 minutes left on the ticket and at least a half-hour ride to alexanderplatz. ok, let's chance it. i got to alex without incident. no-money-for-public-transport busking traveller 1, mean jobsworth ticket controllers 0. berlin is always changing, that's why i kinda fell in love with it the first time i came here in my first hitch-hiking trip around europe in the summer of 1985. that was an amazing adventure, i could write a whole book about that one month alone. berlin in those days was still divided, one of my fellow hitchers i had hitched with from hanover in west germany through east germany to west berlin had spontaneously given me the keys to his apartment and said i could stay there while he stayed at his girlfriend's place. i stayed a week in the end, with a day-trip into east berlin through checkpoint charlie. and alexanderplatz in those days was filled with broiled chicken stands, and cheap ice-cream. it was a straight 20 west german deutschmarks to 20 east german deutschmarks exchange rate which was obligatory and a complete rip-off, but still it was so cheap on the east side that i ate pretty good that day! the best in that whole month! and later, i passed through berlin every summer ever since the berlin crew who came to party for their summer hols at the isla de port lligat... mac, katrin, uwe, christa, lotte, ramona, luzer and the others. after the india trip, i met up with them again in their squat house in the centre of berlin, in brunnenstrasse... and then after my stay in copenhagen, i had come to live in that house in brunnenstrasse for a year and a half... some good times but a lot of stress too from some people bent on opposing all constructive community actions in the house. most of the good people had already left the house by the time i got a room there, and it was only a question of time before i left too, totally disillusioned by the whole community-house experience. since that time, when i passed through berlin, i visited jens at his collective in voigtstrasse, a much more civilised place. now he is working in another community-house project, at kubiz, in weisensee. i went to visit him and see the place, it's a big house and a big construction project!! i stay now at magnus' place in kottbusser damm. magnus is one of my best friends, i´ve known him since the early brunnenstrasse days when i stayed there for some time in the summer. those were the best days of the house. real collective actions, positive community feeling. but since i didn't live there at that time, i didn't realize that even then, there were lots of differences in opinions about how to live together in the house, paying rent, etc. i was a guest of mac in those days and he used to fill me in on the state of affairs. magnus is back from a trip to the far east, he went overland through the central asian 'stan' countries to china and vietnam, laos, cambodia, thailand, malaysia and australia. so now we have been catching up on our travelling adventures this past year, and jamming with him on a stringed instrument he bought in kashgar, china. he is also studying to be a sound engineer and this keeps him busy. saturday night, we went to syndikat, an old drinking place of his from the old days. and i met up with two people from the old copenhagen days, robin and malene. total surprise. we summed up our lives in brief sound-bites and went our different ways. on the way back, magnus and i heard a saxophone playing from a first-floor flat, and decided to investigate. and so gate-crashed a party, which was in it's death throes in any case... the sax turned out to be a electronic clarinet/sax machine, i had a go on the conga drum, and magnus joined in with the mongolian throat singing. he was getting well pissed by now, and i had to drag him away as the hosts were trying to offer him whisky and beer and other alcoholic stuff... "he's drunk enough", i told them, heading for the door. he doesn't remember the trip back to the flat via the u-bahn. talking of which, total scores so far this berlin trip: free-rider 8, ticket-pigs 0. (which included a trip on the notoriously cat-infested ring lines, so should count at least treble!) there isn't really a good place to hitch out of berlin in the direction of dresden and prague, so i chose to look up a mitfahrgelegenheit ride. plenty to choose from, and the best offer won. i walked to the meeting point outside jannowitzbrüke s-bahn station, there was also another passenger waiting, and michal finally came and drove us to prague, dropping us off at stichov station. it was the c-line so i didn't have to change, a ride to kacerov and then the 106 bus to branik. and back to helena's place, another of my bases in europe.

copenhagen

copenhagen... so very familiar since i had lived here for a couple of years some ten years or so ago. i made my way to christiania to where sigve was staying in a friend's wagon. on the way, i found the moonfishers bar, and their free internet. so now i had the directions to the wagon, but no directions to where the party was. no worries. 

 i left my stuff at the wagon, and hung out in the alcohol-free bar until it was closing up, and then back to the wagon. i rolled out my mat and sleeping bag and tried to get some kip on the front 'porch'. an hour or so later, a bike was parking up and it was rosa, a friend of sigve's. but no sign of sigve himself. 'we were supposed to leave together', she said, 'but then he just disappeared'. she left to wait by the bridge for him, and i got out of my warm sleeping bag and waited too. it was more than an hour before sigve finally shows up, by which stage i was ready to kill him. it was just my usual grumpiness from lack of sleep. instead, we greet warmly, we hadn't seen each other since the dividalen days. sigve shows me the couch, and i tell them that i'm going to hit the sack straight away cos i really needed to sleep, and also because i realized that him and rosa really needed to talk. 

in the morning over a raw-food breakfast, (sigve is 6 months into a raw-food diet), he told me what had happened: just another misunderstanding. and we caught up on all the news since that time in north norway. we went together to a music shop where he got himself a nice digital mic for his music recordings, and then to the christiania bath-house for a well-needed shower and sauna. in the evening, after my now usual fried carrot and onion pasta meal, we had a jam session in the wagon with ras asua, a guy from mali with his balafon, a traditional xylophone percussion instrument. man, could he play that thing! with me on my drum, and sigve with guitar/drum, we made some great music together. in the morning, sigve had to take a train back to norway. that was the reason he was back in copenhagen, to take his stuff and instruments back home. he had lived in the wagon the previous winter. i packed my stuff too, and we walked back to the heart of christiania. at the bridge, we got joined by a friend of sigve on her bike. she was also norwegian, he had met her at the party, the one i missed. we all went to the moonfishers bar for the internet, and after we said our goodbyes to sigve, i got talking to siri. i told her i was looking for a place to stay in copenhagen for a few more days, and without hestitating, she offered me to stay at her place. great! we agreed to meet later at her place in sjaelor, as she was on her bike and i wanted to do some busking beforehand.

 busking on the main pedestrianized street of stroget was a very slow affair. maybe it was the depressingly grey overcast weather, maybe it was the start of the week and month, maybe it was a whole lot of factors, but i didn't make a lot. this wasn't sweden for sure. a young guy from latvia asked to join me with his break-dancing, but still we didn't make any more. however, it was just great to busk together with someone. i took the s-tog train to siri's place, and was just in time for an early dinner, being prepared by bapi, another indian man being hosted by siri, but leaving that night back to germany and paris. bapi cooked a great western/indian fish dish, and after eating, left to drive his car back home. he had been there for the world music festival, playing his tabla drums in a band. i caught up with one of my best friends from the time when i lived here, sune. he was playing in a new band, playing new music! gone was the punk guitar from the ungdomhuset days, now sune was playing a baglama and singing traditional greek folk songs in danish! it was a surprise for sure, but not that much.... he was already hinting at this stuff the last time i saw him a couple of years ago, and from the time i met him and solo in their collective in fyn. and there was also a change in their relationship. my best friends had split up. sune was now with another woman, and solo was bringing up their daughter ronja at her place in vesterbro. we didn't have much time to talk after their gig in the 'smallest theatre in the world' on kronprinsessengade. i went back to siri's place as i had promised to cook her my famous alu gobi sabji dish. the kitchen there was perfect... everything was in easy reach, spices were there, no-stress cooking. siri was allergic to gluten and milk and soya products, and so we made a dough for the chappatis from other flours like rice, and a gluten substitute. i looked at the dough and was a little sceptical if we could make chappatis from it, but i had to eat my hat cos they turned out very good after all. 

the next evening, i went to see solo and ronja and had dinner with them, and got her view of the split. it was over a year ago, and she was not really over it. "what should i say", she said, "he left me for another woman. it totally broke my heart". if it wasn´t for ronja, for sure she would have moved on. but as it was, she and sune had always to discuss and organize times for visiting etc etc etc and of course, they had different opinions on what was the best for ronja. i left quite sad and hoped that it would not be long before solo could put it behind her and move on. i tried to get a lift to berlin via the mitfahrgelegenheit website on the internet. it's based in germany and so mainly german car drivers, and it's a good way to share the cost of petrol for a lift. and for me, to save myself a lot of misery hitching in denmark in the sleet and rain. there was a lift going but she decided not to take up my offer to reduce the price by almost half to 20 euros! okay, no worries. i did another 3 hour busking session and made another 20 euros for the eurolines bus. i just made it to their office in the evening to get the ticket for the early morning bus to berlin.

siri was making a clay sculpture when i got back (she also paints and has an allotment garden to work on), and i made a last dinner of curried red lentils and red rice. delicious, if i say so myself. i thanked her a lot for her hospitality and next morning, bleary-eyed, went to get the bus to berlin.

gothenburg

i have been many times to gothenburg. one of the first times was on the occasion of alan and åsa's wedding where i had arrived by ferry from fredriksberg in denmark, in freezing cold february (who the hell gets married in february in scandanavia?). the whole night, i stayed awake in mcdonalds, keeping warm, watching the other homeless folk doing the same, and in the morning, i had tried to hitch to vanernas in -4 degrees... freezing my bollocks off, getting nowhere fast. in the end i took the train. 

long dark nights are not the best for hitching, so i didn't even think twice to hitch that night. instead, i did a stint of busking in the centre, called up alan to see if he had the contact for pia and jimmy, friends i hadn't seen in years. unfortunately, he and åsa had also lost touch with them. plan b: the bus station. seemed like a good idea, i rolled out my mat and sleeping bag, even had a power socket nearby to charge up the mobile. i was just settling down to kip when the security comes and says that they will close up in 15 minutes. damn. i packed up stuff, and walked into the cold night once more. it was around 1.30 a.m. plan c: yep, another stint in mcdonalds. the same one like 20 years ago. of course, the decor had changed since then, (and the down & outs too!) but probably the coffee was still the same. they kicked us all out at 4, and so i traipsed back to the bus station, which was just opening up again.

out came the mat and sleeping bag and i got around 3 hours of precious sleep before security comes to tell me to pack my stuff and go. perfect alarm, cos it was around dawn and light enough to start hitching. it was only a 20-minute walk to the hitching spot at ullevi motet, not the best place cos there wasn't any place for the cars to pull over. one car stopped and he was not really going my way. a traffic warden passed me and asked how it was going. i just shrugged and said "bad". "yes", she said, "and your colour doesn't help". didn't i just know it. i changed place to a couple of other junctions, but they were much quieter. i went back to ullevi. after 3 hours, i gave up, and went back to the centre. did some busking, it was a bit slow, but steady. i went to the bus station to enquire about the bus, but it seemed expensive. of course, it was friday, they hike up the prices! i tried at the train station, and i could get one for 260kr, still expensive but cheaper than the bus."but that's the price now, it will change later". i counted my money, and was 15kr short. i went back to do some busking and was getting really nothing, fretting that that ticket was now probably more expensive than the bus. but from nowhere, i got a 20kr note dropped into my hat. after patiently finishing off the rhythm, i ran with my pack and drum back to the station, and tried for the ticket. "that'll be 390kr", he said. "no way! i was told it was 260kr just 15 minutes ago". he checked his computer, and asked the woman i saw before, and finally he found the cheap ticket for me. what a relief. so with ticket bought, i had a couple of hours to kill, and found a good busking spot, and was really enjoying drumming for the people. who, in turn, showed their appreciation by a steady stream of drops into my hat. which motivated me more.... the train got into malmö, i got some munchies and coffee, got the ticket to copenhagen which was now a total rip-off seeing as there was no choice but to take this toll bridge over the oresund. i asked about the ferry which i used to take in the past, and was told that it had been discontinued ten years ago. i got chatting with one guy on the train, or rather, he got chatting to me and proceeded to tell me of his troubles with his mum not telling him about her past, seeing as he had mixed heritage etc etc. i gave him a sympathetic ear, relieved that the trip to the main station at copenhagen was a short one and so i didn't have to hear his whole tragic life story.

oslo

gobybus bus cruised into the bus terminalen in oslo just around dusk. i had to check the internet place cos i forgot to write my host's address in oslo... so first to the overhead walkway to the shopping centre for a spot of busking... within half an hour i had made 100kroner. emails checked, tourist office found to get a map, and then the walk through the harbour dockyards and the main road and finally i locate my hosts in oslo. rosy and her 2-year daughter live in an ex-squat, a big yellow wooden house on ormsundsvej, about 3kms from the city centre. she and her flatmates made me feel very welcome even though they were in the middle of big renovation works to the first floor kitchen and hallway, and the other rooms on that floor. i got to stay in the wagon in the back yard, it was a bit cold the first couple of nights until i got the wood-burning stove going... and then it was like a sauna! i helped out as much as i could, learning how to plaster with an ecological clay and sand mix, fixing the electrics in their bogs. busking-wise, apart from the stint near the bus-terminalen, busking was a slow affair. many many gypsy beggars sitting on every corner it seemed, and when i did find a good spot, not many drops. every busking stint, the hard skin on my hands would dry up more and the crack on my right hand would open up again. painful drumming. i met up very briefly with marit for a coffee the evening of my first full day... strange to see her without her dreads. and then i woke up one morning from the wagon and decided i would go to copenhagen. i checked my mail one last time and got one from sigve... he wasn't in oslo, he was in copenhagen, and was inviting me to a party. "i'm on my way", i wrote back. so i said my goodbyes to rosy and the others, and as their place was not far from the main road south out of oslo, i only had a minute's walk to the hitching point to gothenburg.

it was a long wait, i was asking at the petrol station from time to time and then waiting at the entrance road, and after three hours of waiting, i finally got a lift. andreas and his son were driving south to sweden, with a stopover at stromstad. andreas was from germany and living in norway for some years now, working as an engineer. he was telling me his theories about how the nordic folks were really difficult to get to know as friends. i drummed for them now and then, before andreas agreed to drop me off in the centre of gothenburg. he was driving 100kms further but to the middle of nowhere place, where from bitter past experience, i knew better not to try hitching from such places! not that i had better luck from gothenburg in the past, but if i did get stuck, i could always do some busking and take the bus.