and the fate was so...

"and the fate was so..."

on the overland trip to india almost 15 years ago, i saw this written on the side of a beat-up turkish long distance bus, at ankara bus station... like it was saying that no matter how suicidally-inclined our drivers are and how maniacally they drive, don't worry... what's gonna happen is gonna happen, so don't worry, be happy! happily, even though i saw one crashed bus by the side of the road the whole trip from anakara to erevan, i made it there in one piece.

the bus-drivers in iran were worse! and in india.... well, i have no words. by the time i'd left india some 6 months later, my whole life philosophy had changed from self-deterministic nihilistic loner to committed fatalist!

back to square one

square one? london. alone. directionless. i've been here before and it's not a good place to be. would prefer hell. just kidding. seems like a personal hell to me. was riding high in the summer, it was a good time. hadn't felt so happy for a long long time. i was on the top row, almost home. and then the dice came back to me and i rolled a six... and i landed on a snake... it was the perfect trap laid for me, as if fated... and i slid slid slid down to the bottom row... yet still it wasn't terminal, i could've retrieved the situation, but it was out of my hands... the dice was with someone else and i waited my turn again... and so i trudged back solemnly to square one.

 

feels heavy, this life. these emotions are weighing me down. trapped under too many layers of disappointments and misunderstandings. of which i can only blame myself. i took a risk, and it didn't come off. but no regrets. just have to get out of this fucking pit of self-pity!!

the road is there, she's waiting...

the road is there, she's waiting

patiently, not judging

knowing i will come...

the big snow in the big smoke

can't get away from it, it's the first thing people start talking about, the national british past-time that is moaning about the weather! apparently it's the coldest winter since the ice age and i haven't seen snow like this since... well, last february.


ok, ok, then it was a helluva lot that came down one night and paralysed the transport network in london for a couple of days, and then it thawed out and never came back. this time round, we've had a couple of big falls and no real thaw, and last night, we got another 5 inches or so. and no chance of it going away too soon either. the big freeze continues.


xmas hols, i went to see eliza up in chester, which is near north wales. beautiful old town, with the distant welsh hills as the backdrop. it was an adventurous trip hitching up there. i almost didn't go cos of the freezing weather, but as it wasn't snowing (and it was the winter solstice), i thought i'd take a chance. a couple of buses to get to the start of the m1 at staples corner, and the very small lay-by just before the roundabout.


that lay-by is a blessing for hitchers... it has no other purpose really. double red lines means absolutely no stopping, so it's not a really fantastic place. but now better than where i usually stood to hitch up the m1 which was right on the hard shoulder on the slip road itself. unfortunately, there's a cctv camera pointing right at you where it's good to stand, and last time i hitched from here, the pigs came within 5 minutes and told me to hop it... to the lay-by!

i was there for an hour freezing my fingers off my m1 sign when a van pulls into the lay-by. liw, the plumbing engineer, saves my life. "i'm going up to wigan to get my power-flush machine repaired", he said. "nice one", i replied, "i have to get to chester... can you can drop me at knutsford services". liw was a character for sure. he was constantly on his hands free phone, making appointments for plumbing jobs, organizing a couple of dates with woman along the way.... he dropped me off at a chippy in stoke, and whilst i stuffing my face with chips, he was getting tea and "desserts" at his 'internet dating' friend's place. no sooner are we are back in the van and back on the m6 than he's on the phone again to line up his next conquest, somewhere in chesire. unfortunately, she was busy and so no diversion into chesire, which would've been good for me. "no problem, i'll get her on the way down", he said.


it was amazing scenery going up the m1, the countryside was covered in a blanket of snow, the trees seemed like they had been sprinkled with icing sugar. through birmingham, there wasn't so much of the white stuff, and the weather had definitely cleared up going up the m6 with some bright sunshine. of course, by the time we got to knutsford services, the weather had completely changed and it started snowing heavily.


i got my sign for the m56 out and someone stopped... but they were going in the direction of manchester, not chester. half an hour of getting nowhere, time for plan b. i walked out of the services to the main a-road coming from manchester to chester, but at the junction, there was no place to pull over. the sun had come back, and then gone again, and this time the snow came with a chilling wind. i walked down to a lay-by 400m away and got lucky after half an hour... a taxi pulled up. "can you give us a lift to the next village mate?" jamal was cool, he drove me to the bus station in nantwich. "people are a bit backward here", he said, "they'd never give you a lift; if you come up from london, you should take the exit at crewe and come that way". "i'll remember for next time", i said.


the weather was the same in nantwich so i opted to take the bus to chester. it would soon be dark too. about a couple of miles out of nantwich, the sun came out again and stayed all the way to chester. i did a quick busking stint waiting for eliza, and found that the people were in good generous spirits. merry xmas!


eliza was sharing a house with 2 chinese girls (who were also care assistants for the elderly like herself), one chinese and one english guy. a typical badly maintained bare minimum rental house. i was there a week to see out the xmas period, we both were cooking and plenty of food. "we have to get into the traditional spirit of indulgence at this time of year", she said. eliza had just got back from a week-long holiday in the gambia, and had brought back some african spices and foods. like yam. she made a real nice gambian dish one time, and then a traditional polish dish with sauerkraut and polish sausages. she was working night shifts so during the days when she was sleeping, i was pottering around chester. nice old town, well preserved tudor buildings, cathedral, and a river.




no more busking cos after the short busking spell, i noticed the drum was sounding slightly flat and my worst fears were confirmed when i discovered a crack in the side... from when the drum had rolled off the seat on the bus. bummer! i got some glue, and needles from the chemists, fixed it up, but when i put the skin back on and the put on the tension, i could see that the crack was worse than i thought. nothing for it but to wait till i got back to london.



i made my way to the hitching point, and luckily the weather was sunny; however, getting away from chester was a bit difficult, and i got a few racist idiots giving me the finger as i stood hitching at the roundabout. yeah, it's easy to be brave from a distance, isn't it? my response now is just to turn around and laugh at them as they speed away, knowing that they would be watching in the rear-view mirror. nothing worse than being laughed at. ok, a brick through the windscreen could be worse, sure.... i should be more prepared!
after an hour or so, i got a lift to tarporley, where it was pretty misty. still hitchable though, and i got a good lift from there to the bottom of the m6. waiting at corley services, kynda and his son jay gave me a lift to toddington services. it was dark now and no sooner had i got out of the van and walked to the exit road than i got a lift. baah, originally from ghana, was luckily heading in the direction of uxbridge. "i'm going to see a friend in harrow first, but i can drop you off near ruislip", he said. another serendipitous hitching adventure. i walked half an hour and was home.



new year's eve... well, long gone are the days of getting rat-arsed and dodging the horizontally fired fireworks on the freezing streets of a city. alone, indoors, hibernating. goodbye to another false holiday.

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.