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!