Cycling & Dancing

"Wow, I'm impressed. Nine hours cycling and dancing until 5:30 in the morning!"

These were the words of Bianca just before we decided to call it a night and head back to Nordenham after some clubbing (if you can call it that here...) down in Oldenburg. I was impressed too! In fact, this last week-and-a-half since starting my trip back I've had more late nights after a full day's cycling than I ever would at home, hence why I've been too preoccupied to update everyone.

So I'll just quickly run through a couple of things while I've got a spare few minutes. The trip's been going pretty well cycling-wise so far. I'm happy with the bike and my legs seen to be coping well. After stretching for at least ten minutes and starting off, the first hour or so is always the toughest but after that you get into the rhythm of things and just enjoy the ride. With the clothes I'm wearing my bum hasn't been hurting at all (that's a relief!) and I've been feeling nice and cool even when the sun was shining strongly last week. However, that does mean I have the most horrendous tan line ever seen (seriously, it looks rediculous!) and my main past-time has now gone from reading and composing to pealing off my skin :) I'm not exactly sure how much distance I've covered but what with getting lots a couple of times (a mixture of signs and maps sometimes not matching up and there being no landmarks around to orientate yourself with) it's been longer than I was anticipating. I'd guess it must be around about 400 miles (just over 600km), but that's just a guess.

Ostfriesland (East Fresia) was the area I was cycling around to begin with, which was much like I imagined Holland would be: flat as a pancake, lots of windmills, some towns and villages and lots of cows in the empty spaces. It's definitely dairy country, although disappointingly they don't have a local cheese... Then, when you get to the coast, things start to change. The dykes crop up and you finally see some sheep, as only they can handle the slopes. It makes a welcome change to see the sea rather than miles and miles of flat country, even if the strong crosswinds makes cycling much more difficult. I found Ostfrieslandians in general very friendly, greeting you with "Moin" when you cycle by or enter a shop. They're also quite obsessed with fish, their nickname apparently being fischköpfe (fish heads)! The Netherlands itself hasn't quite been what I'd imagined though. There's very little countryside here, just town after town, much fewer windmills and so far I haven't seen a single field full of tulips or a window with pretty wooden shutters and an outdoor windowsill full of flowers. Maybe this is just a cliche that doesn't really exist, but it would be nice to see them all the same.

A few times so far I've found myself in the right place at the right time. On my way down to Bremen from Nordenham I stopped at a town festival where they were erecting some sort of flower-covered pole with flower-covered bells thingy with a band dressed up in their traditional costumes and then when I went to visit Bremen itself I found myself in the middle of the party celebrating Werder Bremen's victory in the German equivalent to the FA cup. Literally 70% or so of everyone in the city was dressed up in the green and white kit and we were all standing outside the radhaus (town hall) dancing to the music coming from the loudspeakers, singing the Werder Bremen songs and trying to grap a flag, scarf or football that the officials were handing out for free or throwing from the radhaus balcony. Then, after a couple of hours' wait, the team arrived in their coach, went up to the balcony and lifted the cup amit raptuous cheering. Not that I've ever seen them play a single match or anything, but I'd definitely call myself a Werder Bremen fan from now on! In Papenburg I again happened to arrive at the right time. They were celebrating the biggest day in their town's calendar so there were stalls and music stages all along either side of the canal running through the main street. And in Emmen I was looking around the main square and saw a poster for a fado concert in the church starting in an hour, which I of course went to!

As always, it's been great to see and stay with ACers along the way and also to meet their friends and families. I arrived at Jacob's University in Bremen on Tariq's birthday, which was fun, although he'd more-or-less celebrated it the night before. Then in happenning Esens (!) I stayed with My and her family, eating authentic and delicious SE Asian food and watching Jane Austin films... One day I went for a trip to Langeoog, one of the Fresian Islands, which was pretty if rather touristy. I'm staying with Sam in Utrecht University College at the moment, although after a late night in their power-cut-prone Sosh last night he's decided to stay in the college to sleep (or watch Gossip Girl?!) while I've come to Amsterdam for the day.

So far Couchsurfing has been a big success. The four people I've stayed with have all been very friendly and accommodating and we've had a lot of fun each night - clubbing in Oldenburg with Bianca and her friends, a late nights and a good breakfast with Johannes in Wilhelmshaven, clubbing in Papenburg with Yvonne and her friends and then (because I needed an early night after all this!) a good chat and a good film call 'Brick' with William in Zwolle. Their own Couchsurfing experiences have only ever been positive too. William said that, actually, he considers it more safe than staying in a hostel because you only have one person to keep an eye on instead of everyone else in your dorm! Yvonne had the lovely idea of taking a poleroid picture of everyone she hosts and to have a guestbook for us to sign. I'll send everyone I've stayed with a postcard soon just to say thanks.

That's all for now folks. I'll leave it to some of the pictures to tell you more about what I've seen and been up to. Now I'm about to leave the amazing bibliotheek here in Amsterdam to have a taste of what its infamous nightlife has to offer ;) Tomorrow it's a daytrip to The Hague (really want to see the International Court of Justice there as I wanted to work there once upon a time!) then to stay with Dieteke in Amersfoort before heading south through the rest of this flat and waterlogged country.

Hedd in Europe. Eh?! Yup, that's right, and he's on a bike!

Yo yo!!!!

So I thought I might as well blog about my latest trip a) to let you all know what cycling through Western Europe is like, b) 'cos I can use is as my own personal journal, and c) to stop pointless worrying by female relatives.

After a long but comfortable train ride, mum & I finally arrived in her & Ffion's hotel room placed half-way between the world's largest cylindrical aquarium and East Berlin's most famous church. I'd decided to stay in a hostel a 12 minute walk away - more familiar territory. I made a bet with mum to see which one of us could make more new acquaintances, the one staying in a huge hotel but isolated from everyone else or the one sharing a room with four strangers. I won, of course, but only by 2-0 (by the time I'd get back to the hostel most people were asleep anyway and I felt like joining them too!), meeting an Iranian-Canadian who was in Berlin for a topography and word-graphics conference (he'd ran out of business cards on the second evening so was up in the middle of the night trying in vain to do some make-shift new ones) and a Brayillian Guz (sorry, that's these silly German keyboards, but I'm sure you can work it out!) who was half-way through his 8 months of motor biking around virtually all of Europe. The only people they had a chance of being acquainted with in the hotel was a morbidly obese couple Ffion & I saw stark-naked in the hotel sauna!!

Berlin was fun, as usual (!) but hot for a change. We went on a river cruise, randomly found a huge party by the Brandenburg Gate celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Bundesepublik and sped through the Jewish Museum. Oh yes, and we also went to see Andrea Bocelli live in concert, but I thought that's not really worth mentioning... actually, he's the whole reason we were there in the first place, as was the case with what seemed like most people who attended the concert; none of the people I spoke to after it were from Germany. To be honest, I was more impressed with the South African bass than with Andrea - he's obviously accustomed to relying on a microphone (!) - but judging by the queue to say a few words to Andrea and get his autograph after it had finished I was obviously in the minority. Luckily for mum he stayed right until he'd seen everyone who could be bothered to wait which must have meant about 300 signatures and 300 times having his hand plonked in the right place on the programme by his fiancée.

I left mum & Ffion after breakfast on the Monday morning and headed to Prenzlauer Allee where Rahel lives. She'd given me a couple of tips as to where to find a bicycle and I was going to see if I could visit her family there after I'd found something. Unfortunately, after a good three hours of searching, I was still empty-handed, although I had a good idea of what I was looking for and the sort of price it would cost. There was no answer at her house when I called either so I got myself some Greek tidbits (which seem to be very popular here in Germany) and had a picnic lunch in the sun outside the planetarium before getting the bus to Hamburg.

I met Björn and his dad when I arrived in Hamburg and went to their home in a pretty suburb on the edge of the city from where you have the ideal spot to play ‘guess what airline is taking off from the airport’ and still be wrong. I found it very amusing how everyone in the house had such different English accents: Björn’s is still German but also quite British, his older brother’s is very American, his younger sister’s is Australian and then his parents’ are strongly German! After a chat with the family, a much-needed shower, some tasty lasagna, a catch-up with Björn and some strawberries with ice-cream, we were upstairs watching his Year DVD which brought back a lot of old memories. In one way it was nice to see my firsties in the video and remember the good times from last year but in another I couldn’t help thinking about leaving this time last year and about how now I don’t really have any connections at all still in the college – and once Brian leaves next year I really won’t have any at all!! Haven't really seen the yearbook yet (although what I have seen i.e. the cover is very good!) but I know I'll feel the same when I do. So to everyone who’s just left, I’m thinking about you and hoping you’re having a good time and keeping yourself busy – that’s the best cure. Oh, and I hope the poster I sent helped lift your spirits during the IB! Aqeela said she’d take a photo of it, but knowing her… :P

After buying supplies for Björn’s Vietnam Project in the funkiest outdoor adventure shop ever, we heading to the city centre where, after being given the infamous and apparently predictable ‘Björn’s Tour of Hamburg City Centre’ (I liked it anyway!) we met up with Tariq for lunch. I thought I’d ordered squid, and I had, but in true German style it was squid stuffed with pork and bacon!! Lovely all the same, if rather filling. We had your average prolonged AC dinner conversation: gossip, European elections, gossip, pros & cons of nationalising the education system over having a market-driven one, gossip… We walked about for a bit, sat by a lake watching the boats capsize and staring at the joggers going past, walked a bit more and then went to watch ‘Angels & Dæmons,' which was better than I was expecting! A lot of unnecessary explanations about the Catholic church and dubious quantum physics at the beginning and some totally unrealistic action scenes towards the end but enjoyable all the same with a few very funny laugh-out-loud moments. I want to see the new X-men film next if only to finally see on screen the best X-man of them all: Gambit!

I left on the S-bahn from Hamburg for a town called Stade, just the other side of the river Elbe, from where it would be easier to start my cycling tour and also where I hoped to finally buy a bike. It's quite an interesting town, a bit like a small Shrewsbury or Durham where the main old town is surrounded by a river/canal (haven't quite worked out which it is yet, it has locks but is definitely flowing!), full of old buildings that were obviously built before the spirit measure was invented. But the streets in this old town are deceiving: they look straight but they must all have invisible kinks and bends in them because it's impossible not to go round in circles! I've tried to navigate my way through at least eight times now and not once have I come out the other end where I was aiming for. I hadn't been able to find anyone to stay with in Stade so I checked into the youth hostel when I got here (well, after I'd gotten lost going round in circles a few times first actually) and was told that there was room in the cheapest dorm (€16.90 including a decent-sized buffet breakfast - a lot compared to £3.50 in the Cameron Highlands or Jen's £5 in Guanajuato, but there we go) as long as I didn't mind sharing with a load of 16 & 17 year olds. "It might be a bit loud," said the receptionist. I went for it anyway but it turned out that I would only be sharing the corridor with them whereas I had the whole six-bed dorm all to myself. Great in one way 'cos I could spread all my stuff about and get a good night's sleep but it meant I didn't get to meet any of my neighbours apart from in front of the telly watching the UEFA final, where our attention was concentrated more on the football than on each other. Oh well, there's always tonight instead.

This morning after my buffet breakfast and reading about why sea water is salty in 'Straeon ac Arwyr Gwerin Norwy' (Norwegian folk stories in Welsh - any Norwegians know the one about the rich farmer, his lazy brother and the hand mill that makes what ever you want it to?) I started my second hunt for a bicycle. It turned out that there's only one place that sells them in the centre here but luckily they had a pretty good selection of the type I was looking for. I found one that I really liked but then the shop was shutting for lunch so I left to think it over. I went to this huge music shop just by the train station to buy some manuscript paper (typical, I only get inspiration when I'm travelling alone and have things on my mind but that's the most inconvenient time of all the actually write a composition down!!), spend some time plucking mandolins and balalaikas for fun and playing some salsa on the electric pianos, then walked slowly back to the bike shop. I was thinking "hmm, should I really go for it? I mean, it's a good bike but brand new so a little pricey. Perhaps I should save the money and spend it on some cheap Air Asia tickets for a fortnight in sunny Malaysia in August instead!" But I went ahead and bought it anyway, went back to the hostel to change into my cycling gear and took it for a test-spin about ten miles in the direction I'll be travelling tomorrow and back again. And while speeding down the straights and overtaking everyone on the hills with ease I realised I'd made the right choice! Malaysia will have to wait until next Christmas or Spring instead!

So that's about it so far. I'm cycling to a town called Nordenham tomorrow, just the other side of the huge port of Bremerhaven, where I'll have my first couchsurfing experience with a woman who's first loves under her 'Personal Description' are music and smelly cheese, so I'm sure we'll get along well! Then it's down to Jacob's to celebrate Tariq's birthday and onwards and Westwards over the next four weeks ^_^

Speak soon. It's been a while!
Hedd.

P.S. Thought of changing the blog name to something like 'Berlin and Back' or 'Hamburg2Home' but can't think of anything catchy starting with 'Stade'... Any suggestions, or can we just pretend I'm in Asia like mum does with Italy?