bremen

i hung out at the subway restaurant on the corner of papelstrasse and waited for ann to arrive. last time i saw her, she was driving off in her yellow vw hippy van to the mechanics place in tsipova, moldova, to get the broken gear-stick fixed. after her summer trip with max in her van, she came back to bremen to continue her studies in biology. she was also living in a w-g, and after some munchies, lots of talk about our travels. i only had one full day in bremen before the flight out, and as ann was busy in the morning with uni stuff, i got to do a last busking stint.

i'd been busking in bremen before, the last time i flew out from here a couple of years ago. i tried a few different spots, some teenage boys came to join me for a while. they were being complimentary, and hung around for a bit, even dropping their small small change into the hat. another place, i got joined by a couple of buskers, their roots were bulgarian. one was playing clarinet, the other accordian. they asked if they could join me for a 'try'... no problem. we played one number, a very recognisable tune that i don't know the name of. and then they said thanks and left. i got the impression they were regular bremen buskers, and just came to check out the new competition. when i heard them a while later playing down the street a bit, i moved away to be out of earshot. and it was a better place in any case. i really gave it my all, knowing that it would be my last busking stint for a while, maybe ever! at one point, a guy came up and started moving a bit to the beat. he was a bit too close, i had to decide whether he was a potentially annoying drunk or a 'harmless' music lover. but no matter... i carried on playing, and he was really getting into it. when i stopped, he compliments me on the music, saying how it was great that i was doing this. i thanked him, and he kept on with the praise... and pulling out his wallet, takes out 10 euros and hands it to me. wow, thanks! he left really happy, and me too. somebody who enjoyed the playing and showed their appreciation in a generous way. it was a good way to end the busking, as it was time to take the tram to the university to meet up with ann.

at the uni, the students had occupied one lecture room too, like in muenster, and ann showed me around. but she was not active in the occupation and we left to get some munchies at the uni cafeteria. back to the centre to meet up with her boyfriend at his flat... he was studying computer science and the w-g he shared with the other geeks there sure looked like a nerds 'paradise'. i was amazed i was able to cook anything there given the chaos in the so-called 'kitchen'. but after they made a special effort to clean the place a bit, i managed to cook up and dish out my curried dahl and rice.

and then hanging out in their favourite alternative bar, elektro 42. complete with kicker table in the cellar!

next morning, i didn't have far to go to the airport and the ryanair flight back to england. and no hassles at passport control unlike last time, when they created a big fuss just cos their computers showed that i had lost a passport.... five years before!!! aufweidersehn deutschland!

at stanstead, the usual way down to the roundabout had been blocked by police barriers, and so i had to walk down to the hitching spot via the car park. and within half an hour, i got a lift from sami, a pakistani minicab driver. after i sorted out that i didn't know he was a cabbie, and that i was hitching bla bla bla, i had a decent enough chat with him down to edgware. i could tell he was a bit shocked about what i was all about, he probably didn't meet too many people like me, for sure. but he dropped me off in the big smoke, and i thanked him once more.
a top up of the oyster card, and two buses later, i'm back at brother's place once more.

hitching to bremen

i could've gone back to munsterland east services to hitch up the a1, but decided to walk to the hitching spot for the a1 and bremen. seemed like a good place, opposite the ice-hall. there was a bus-stop layby for cars to pull over and also a petrol station close by. a 30 minute or so wait before i got a lift. i forget his name now, but he spoke good english and we got talking about climate change. he was definitely in the 'natural causes' camp in the great global warming debate, arguing that just one volcanic eruption creates more greenhouse gases and pollution than all that created by humankind. whether this is true or not, i argued that humankind were also contributing, it didn't matter what the balance was, and whilst we cannot do anything about volcanic eruptions, we can choose how much fossil fuels to burn.

  i got dropped off at tecklenburg services cos he was driving onto berlin. i drew up a sign for bremen - hb - and waited at the exit slip-road. another 30 minute wait and olivier stopped for me. he was driving to hamburg, and was also an ex-hitcher. " i used to hitch to football away matches when i was a student", he said. he was a year younger than me, "yeah, i used to hitch a lot when i was young too", i said. "and i'm still doing it!". "oh", he said, "something must have gone wrong". maybe for you, i was tempted to reply, but i understood his reaction. he had already judged me as one of life's loser. i didn't want to argue that i hitch-hiked out of choice, not circumstance. as most 'capitalist' societies judge people on the amount of material possessions they own, then sure, i was very happy to be one of life's big losers. i could see that he was proud of the big car he was driving fast on the motorway, proud of his worth as a man, he was a winner for sure. i did not want to belittle him or his beliefs, i was just happy that he was kind enough and in a position that he could give me a lift. he was really into synth-music from the 80s, ultravox, human league, etc and he played me some of this old stuff, and was impressed with my drum playing. "you have a spirit for music", he said. for me, who would always tell people that i wasn't a musician, just a humble street busker, it was a great compliment. we started to tell each other some jokes. i knew only one, it has three parts: "what do you call a deer with no eyes?" – "no idea" (no-eye deer). "what do you call a deer with no eyes and no legs?" – "still no idea". for years i've been telling this joke, not realising that there was a third, more vulgar, part. alan in uppsala clued me in: "what do you call a deer with no eyes, no legs, and no penis?" – "still no fucking idea". in the age where people get offended by the slightest of sleights, i would like to immediately point out that no deers were harmed in the telling of this joke! olivier dropped me off at bremen-brinkum junction, kindly stopping at the nearest convenient place, a petrol station. i went in and looked for a map of bremen, asking the girl at the counter to orient me. i told her i wanted to go to neustadt, walking. she looked at me, a little shocked. (olivier had said i must be on drugs when i told him the same!) "it's too far", she said. i was used to people telling me that walking distances are too far, cos most times, people never walk much anywhere. i judged the distance on the map to be about 5 or 6kms... thinking, yeah, no sweat... "take the bus", she said, "you don't need to show a ticket to the driver before eight..." i took her advice, got on the bus, which terminated some place, i asked someone there how to get to pappelstrasse, it turned out it was the same bus, which was now a different number! on the bus itself, i asked some more nice people if they could tell me when we reached pappelstrasse... no problem. i'm glad i didn't walk, would've been sweating like a pig!

muenster

first thing i did in muenster was find a place to busk, and made around 22 euros in an hour and a bit. inital impressions were good, it was a saturday so many people out and about. then i found a bookshop and a map of muenster, and took down the directions to find my host.


my host in muenster was christine, studying english at uni. i only planned to stay a few days, but seeing as the w-g ('community living place') where she lived were throwing a house-warming party at the end of the week, i decided to stay for this. an all-student w-g, they were all very friendly and welcoming, and some musicians amongst them too: marieke played piano and drums, flo on guitar, christine herself was a singer. i helped matthias in the weekly run to fetch organic vegetables and bread from the co-operative farm, and distribute them to a couple of places in muenster besides the w-g themselves.


the uni was involved in the nationwide education protests against tuition fees and other grievances and i went along to have a look at the occupied lecture auditorium. in the early hours of monday morning, two vanloads of police had come to evict the place, but the squatters had already made their escape.


the busking was going quite well, i made my usual average. the xmas markets were in full force, and one time, i guess it was the market manager who came up to me and gave me some spiel about needing a permit to play at the market etc etc, and i pleaded that i was only here temporarily, and besides, they were no indications of where the market began and where i could play without a permit... it was all good-humoured, and i was given 20 minutes and told to find another place, by which time it began to rain anyway and i took shelter in the university self-access-centre for internet.


another evening, christine and i organised a street-jam-session in support of the uni protests, but in the end, only christine and her friend julia turned up. so with me on drums and the girls singing and handing out flyers, and the rain lightly drizzling, we performed for an hour and a half with limited success. straight to the market stall and gluhwein for the girls.


the house-warming party was a success, the live band put on a very good show, and i helped out in the bar.... and of course, drumming. and who do i meet at this party? it's brother tino, from bulgarian gathering, and last i saw him was at this year's gathering in ukraine. he had posted me an email telling to come to this place for the party cos he knew i was in muenster, but little did he know that i was already a guest at this house! and that he was friends with laura and ute, two of the housemates. small world alright. another of those random coincidences that pervade the world of travellers in particular, and of everyone in general.
the next night, i was invited to join tino and his friend annalena to another party at another w-g nearby. not so much music or dancing, and the 'kicker' (table football) was the main distraction even though we tried to do some dj-ing. annalena and i teamed up but our poor/average kicker skills were no match against the 'profies'.


next afternoon, i was well late to start hitching to bremen, i said my goodbyes to christine and the housemates that were there and walked to the hitching point for the a1 and bremen. it had been a really wonderful week-long stay for me in muenster, and the friendly young students left a positive feeling that will make me come back to visit again for sure.