Part 26: "Heiter bis Volkig".
....(This post should be, er... part 19....but, whatever)
...Touching on European travel, singing that 60's song: "Planes & boats & trains (keep passin by), are infact in abundance. The Euro "Greyhound" bus, too: the Euro-Liner...
Getting around is a logistical/fiscal no-brainer...and Europe - tansportationally - is most definitely "united", ergo, connected.
Yet, still being something of a Bohemian wanderer I must always - especially in Germany - opt for the Deutsche Craigslist type rideshare, the MIT FAHR ZENTRUM. There's an office/Buro - usually run by scruffy-ish student types - located in most German towns & cities. You sign up/e mail, chalk in your destination, kick in some gas money...and BA DA BING! - you're on your way! -usually with a coupl'a cool kids.
In my formative years, this was how - when not outright hitch-hiking - I always got around (I dont drive) and thereby established a network of friends - who more often than not - made frequent-repeat journeys that I could...
TIME OUT!
.... I'm beating off Summer bugs & flies here in the Schloss (Die Kastle von Ludwigshafen) garden...And have I mentioned the garden's "KILLER PEAR TREE"?
It's abundant fruit (the KILLER PEARS!) dont just mature then drop to the ground... They fire off the tree's branches LIKE MISSILES at great velocity...seemingly every time I walk by to dump organic trash/fetch fire wood or lounge nearby, drinking, thinking or attending to this book/blog.... But RARELY when any one else is around, whereby I have a really hard time conveying to the Count (Herr Graff) or any one else that this Pear tree is actually trying to kill me!!!
"Pard" my lapse of concentration, Denver/dear Blog supporters.
Where was I?
Oh yes. On many MIT FAHR ZENTRUM trips...I'd meet the most delightful people. Musicians, characters, regular Joes, future girlfriends, business folks.
One morable rideshare introduced me to a van load of "kunstlers", a travelling Theatre group - always in need of gas money - named Heiter Bis Volkig (Sunny to Cloudy) who were pure Fellini and with whom I toured for 3 months until, as they say, the money ran out. And once - I remember! - with a NUN; Sister...something: Maria, maybe.... BOY! Was THAT a bust!!? -Koln to Koblenz (60 miles, tops). It took 3 days. She drove at 5 miles per hour (no smoking), but she DID play guitar and "swore on a stack" that she'd appeared in a movie about an aeroplane!
Irish-German, I think...?
Anyways, so GO Europe! GO Mit Fahr Zentrum. And save yourself a buck or two.
FAST FORWARD 2 days: Frankfurt to Paris (France) in 5 hours. And, in this instance, driving through the night, I arrive in the City of Lights, step out of the car, say "Ciao, Mucker!" to my Mit Fahr driver-buddy, Wolfgang (a cross dresser from Leipzig) who drops me in a very deserted - early morning - Place de la Concorde, downtown Paris.
"Birds wings...rise noiselessly...into the sky... (Rimbaud)
c 2010. davedelacroix/our man in europe
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