Day 4: September 5-6, 2015 –
It was virtually impossible for me to sleep in the hostel. I was in a strange bunk bed, in a room with 7 other people, and I was still on California time. When my watch alarm went off, I had been half awake for the whole night. I had been so paranoid about not making it to the train station on time, that I slept in my clothes; which isn’t comfortable to begin with. Elizabeth seemed to be awake as well, because when I looked over to her bunk, she was sitting up. We both started getting our bags ready for us to leave, with as much respect for our sleeping roommates, as we could. I unplugged my cellphone, made sure that my pack was secure, put on my light jacket, and then swung my 40 pound bag around to my back.
The rain had let up a little, but it was still sprinkling a little as we walked back down the hill to the S-Bahn stop. We bought tickets for the S-bahn train, climbed the stairs, and waited a few minutes for our train to arrive. We boarded the train and took off our packs and relaxed a bit as it took the train 20 minutes to arrive at the Hamburg HBF. We arrived at train station about 30 minutes (airport) early, so we had some time to kill before our train departed.
I looked at the phone noticed that I received a text from Marko. He had written that he was going to meet us in Holtwick, but he might be there later in the afternoon, because he was up late and didn’t get much sleep. I decided that I was going to wait to text him back, until we got to the next AirBnB, because I estimated that the train from Münster to Holtwick was going to take about 90 minutes and I didn’t want him waiting there too long before arrived.
It was funny to think that a day prior, we were wandering around this station like lost children, but after a good night’s sleep, we felt like we knew the place. We bought some breakfast from one of the pastry and coffee shops, and stood on the concourse trying to steal the internet from one of the shops, without making a purchase. While we stood in the concourse eating, people started coming up to us and speaking in German. “Ich weisse nicht.” was all that I said as I shrugged my shoulders. There were people begging for change, and other travels who didn’t know where they were going, approaching me for information, but I knew just enough German to avoid a long conversation. With about 10 minutes until departure, we went down the steps to the platform, where the train headed to Münster would be arriving. We boarded the train with no problems and found the seats that we had reserved. The train ride was about 3 hours long and we arrived in Münster around 11am.
Just like in Hamburg and Copenhagen, it was raining when we walked out of the station. What appeared to be a parking lot, was filled with thousands of bikes, chained up and getting wet. A fact that I read about Münster was that there was more bike traffic in the city, than car traffic. Münster was named the bicycle capital in the world, because of their avid cycling. However, with the rain coming down the way that it was, there was hardly anyone on the streets riding bikes or driving cars. Without the internet at our disposal, we were limited to following the directions that I typed out in my travel guide to get from the train station to the AirBnb. We had luckily kept my guide book in a plastic bag and could read the directions, but we didn’t even know what street we were on. With no idea where to start, we basically just walked around the train station, looking for the street that I listed as our starting point. We approached one or two strangers, who didn’t know where the street was or didn’t know enough English to indulge us, so we just carried on.
After about 15 minutes of non-stop downpour, the rain got so unbearable, that when we saw a shop that might sell umbrellas, we went in to buy one. The shopkeeper was an old man, whom was probably used to tourists stopping in, because of the shops proximity to the train station. He had a tourist map of Münster handy and started looking for the street that I pointed to in the guidebook.
I tried to communicate with him in the best German that I knew and he was kind enough to at least try to help. I was sure he knew the area enough to help us locate the first street in our directions. When the tourist map proved to be no help, he went to the back of the store and brought out an atlas. After browsing the index and finding the street, he marked the tourist map that he had given us, with the street circled, and from there we were able to use the directions that I put in my travel book to get to where we needed to go.
It was only about a mile walk from the shop to the apartment, but with 40lbs on our backs, in pouring rain, it seemed like it was taking us forever to get there. When we got to the AirBnB address, I followed the instructions that our host and given over email. She was out travelling on her own and was renting out her room until she came back to Münster, for school. Her instructions were to go to the third floor and get the key out of the chewing gum container. We climbed the steps to the third floor and then looked around until we found the plastic gum container, with the keys to get it.
We had arrived about an hour early to check in, but since it was raining, but we really just wanted to drop off our packs, so that we could meet Marko in a timely fashion. The apartment had high ceilings and hardwood floors that creaked as we walked through. The apartment was silent and had the vibe that either everyone was out or everyone had been partying the night before and were still in bed. We set down our bags in the living room and started to guess which room was ours, so that we could change out of our wet clothes and then head back to the train station to take a train out to the Village of Holtwick. We pushed open a door and there was a couple still sleeping in one of the beds and the other bedrooms were locked.
Eventually, one of the roommates came out to greet us. Even though the apartment didn’t smell like weed, this guy was definitely acting like he was on something. He talked really slow and even though his English was good, he didn’t seem to be with it at all. We started asking him questions about the city, like where there was a nearby thrift store or shop where we could buy a jacket and he acted like he didn’t know much about the city. After a few minutes, he went back into his room to either go back to sleep or get more stoned.
There was a note by the WIFI router with the name and password, so we logged on and fiddled around for a bit and tried to find the route to Holtwick. There appeared to be a train leaving in a little less than an hour, so I texted Marko and let him know that we would be arriving a little after 1pm. Elizabeth insisted that she had to respond to some emails for events that she was lining up, despite the fact that it was 5am in San Diego. This took about an hour longer that I was expecting given the fact that I didn’t anticipate many trains making their way out to Holtwick.
We eventually started walking to the train station, but thought that if we found a shop along the way, where we could buy a jacket, that we would stop. Before we left the apartment, we got directions to a thrift store that was about a mile away and was actually in the direction of the train station. While we couldn’t seem to find the store that we were looking for, but we did run into a Red Cross thrift store (which was sort of like a Salvation Army Thrift Store).
We looked through the many jackets available. I found one that was made of a waterproof fabric, but had a fleece lining. I looked kind of stupid, which probably wasn’t going to help me fit in on our trip, but I was going to be warm. Elizabeth found a trendy little jacket that was sort of a short, black, trench coat. Each of our jackets was €5, so we were especially stoked that we weren’t going to be spending a crazy amount of money on clothes.
A block or so away was the train station, that we had arrived at about 2 hours earlier. We walked over to the ticket machine and bought our tickets to Holtwick. It was funny clicking on a screen that had my name on it, and the sentimentalist that Elizabeth is, she had me take a photo of the screen. There was a small pizza shop in the train station, so since we had about 20 minutes until our train departed, we stopped in to get some pies.
The pizza shop had lots of items on the menu to choose from aside from pizzas, but we were going to play it safe and just order what we knew. Elizabeth ordered a pizza with cheese and I ordered one with pepperonis. He started making the pizzas and I noticed that he had put yellow peppers on one of the pizzas that he was starting on. I thought that he had to be making this one for someone else. He cooked the pizza and then handed it to me. “I didn’t want peppers,” I said. “No, you said pepperoni, this is pepperoni.” He said. “Oh, I’m sorry, in the US, pepperoni are like small salami.” I said. He looked at me confused. I turned to Elizabeth and asked her, if she wanted this pizza with yellow peppers, and she said yes. So I asked the guy making the pizzas, if he could add salami to the cheese pizza. Still confused, he added the salami and then heated that pizza as well. When the pizza was ready, we took it up to the platform and ate it until our train arrived.
> Next Chapter to Holtwick, Germany
Back in Münster
After Marko dropped us off, we went back to the AirBnb for a few minutes to put in some laundry and then planned to head back out to the city. It was funny that instead of having a laundry room, the clothes washer was in the kitchen under the counter, where one might find a dishwasher or an oven. I couldn’t find any detergent handy, so I knocked on the bedroom door of the guy that appeared to be stoned earlier, and he was able to find some for me. We didn’t have much to wash, just our underwear, socks and the jeans that I had gotten dirty climbing the Holtwick Egg, so everything fit perfectly in the smallest clothes washer that I’d ever seen.
We figured that we would wander around town after we got dressed. We went down the stairs and out to the street. We would just keep walking, until we found something interesting. We had the tourist map that the store clerk gave us earlier, but we couldn’t find any of the streets that we were walking on. We decided that we were going to wing it and hope that we ended up going in the direction of something impressive. In my planning, I had learn that there was a gallery and museum festival in the city center that night, so I thought it would be fun to check it out.
After taking a roundabout way, asking German residents that couldn’t speak English for directions, and following hordes of cyclists, we made it to the center; where saw all of the restored buildings of the old town. The buildings were lit up, there were banners hanging, and flags flying. Once again, I thought, that if it wasn’t raining, we could’ve drawn caricatures, and made major bank.
We walked down one long cobblestone street, and we saw magicians and jugglers performing. Just beside one of the performers, we saw a red carpet leading down an alley way. There wasn’t a bouncer or a security guard taking tickets, they were just letting everyone in. We walked down the red carpet and it open up into a courtyard. There were lots of people there in formal dress, standing around and socializing. There was an outdoor corridor lined with pillars and in between those pillars, there were caterers set up, with all of their speciality dishes. There were caterers that specialized in seafood, others that specialized in vegetarian foods, and some that specialized in wine.
We walked from one booth to another to see what tickled our fancy. Each vendor had 3 or 4 dishes, that were elegantly displayed, so that you would know what your food would look like, if you hired them for your party. Since we were in Germany and I couldn’t get enough of local cuisine, I ordered a rostbratwurst that came with a side of delicious potato salad, and cucumber. I also ordered a half liter of Warsteiner, which came in a glass labeled with the brewery. The beer was €5, but if you returned the glass, then they would give you a €2 return fee. For €2, I thought that I was getting a pretty nice souvenir, but I would have to protect this glass through the next 25 days, in order to get it home safely.
Next to the food was a stage with a jazz band, consisting of a drummer, piano player, bassist, guitarist, and saxophone player. The music was pretty general to my ear, but occasionally, I would hear something like a Beatles song, jazzed up instrumentally. It was definitely a fancy scene. Definitely more fancy than my dress pants, running shoes, and €5, thrift store, jacket could handle. I looked like an American tourists, but I was owning it.
The courtyard was in between a few historic buildings, which were either original, or had been restored after being bombed out in the war. There were a few projections displayed on the buildings, which were custom designed to match the buildings. There was what could best be explained as psychedelic animations, around the window frames and roof. The displayed animations were slow and sort of had the feel of a lava lamp or the liquid light that people would use at rock concerts in the 60’s.
We hung around and had a few drinks and then walked back out to the street, where there were a few art galleries open. We walked inside one of them that was two floors. The art wasn’t very memorable, but I think that it was photography and mixed media. I remember that a few of the pieces were reminiscent of the Talking Heads album, More Songs about Buildings and Food, where they took a bunch of Polaroids and had them lined up to form one image. There was a medium sized crowd hanging around. One of the perks of going to a gallery, is always the free wine and cheese.
Down the street, there was a historic building that might have been a church or a town hall, but it was gated, so it might have been a palace of some sort. We went in to see the art inside and admire the statues on the outside. We stopped into a few more places, including a store that almost looked like it was giving out brochures for energy or transportation. To keep the party going, they were serving free champagne. After we left that place, we ended up getting turned around, so much that we were having a hard time figuring out how to get home. We had our small map and were looking for the streets, but we just couldn’t seem to find our way. Finally, we found a sign that lead us to the train station. From there, we were able to go back through the directions that we had in the guide book and make it back to the apartment.
We keyed in and walked across the creaky floor to our room. The room felt like it was freezing, although it was probably only around 50 degrees. We didn’t have a pillow or blankets, so we sort of gathered up a few clothes from our bags and bundled them up for pillows. We got the rest of the wet clothes out of the washing machine in the kitchen, that we had left earlier, and hung them on chairs and on the foot of the bed.
I walked on the creaky floor to the toilet and shut the door behind me, which didn’t seem to close all the way, let alone lock. I sat on the seat and it was like I was sitting on a toilet seat made of ice. The bathroom didn’t have a light or a vent, so a window had been left open all day, letting the cold draft blow through the house. When I finally made it back to bed, I was shivering. I didn’t know if it would be possible to sleep with the temperature being so low, but I was definitely going to try.
Places That We Bought Food And Drink
Station Pizza
Ernst-Pernoll-Str. 28, Münster, Niedersachsen, Germany
We stopped at Station Pizza when we arrived early on our way to Holtwick. There were a few guys running the place that might have actually been Italian, cooking up pizzas, sandwiches, and other quick handheld meals. We ordered personal 10” pizzas that really hit the spot. The wall menu listed a number of different toppings, which accured an addition cost. I originally ordered pepperoni, which in German means pepperchinies. Even bad pizza is pretty good pizza and this was definitely above average for the preparation time and price. If you want pepperoni, though, get it with salami.