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.