OUR MAN in EUROPE/dave delacroix/Part 32: The Nativity Scene

Part 32: The Nativity Scene (...the Road to Georgie Gold)

Twas a dark, cold and (stormy) lonely night; nee´ry a 12 pack had passed my lips (sometimes I´m known by my honary Lakota Indian name: "Ten Beers!")...

Anyways; jammin on the streets of Worms (here after, please pronounce as "Wharms" so as not to be distracted by the English connotation), I garner 20 euros, pack it in (it´s freezing!), hop it down Main St. and encounter a Russkie Wake (funeral for a dead guy) and, trust me, the term "wake" is really quite misleading for a Russki (Russian) passing!

...Candles, of course. Snackeroos, cookies, joints. Grim faces. Usual stuff: everyone´s freezing. But this is also a Punk Rocker Wake and a Saturnalia...or Bachanalia, of sorts...and is evident and in full force.

Ivans.
Sergeis.
Demetri (some kind of Gladiator)
Petruskas!
-Some nebulous dude named,
"Ahmed".

And an adjournment to an All-Nite Kebab gig, (so as to get warm in:) Wharm´s by the main rail station; Pilsner for 1 euro: drink all you can, prevails....!

But...alas... by 4 a.m., the Wake is over. Street candles, dead or extinguished, offerings of cookies/cake, devoured, and the ALL-nite Kebab dude, wanting to close.
It´s a bust!

And yet, it´s WEINACHTS (Xmas: Holy Water night) time; christmas Eve, in fact, in Deutschland. The inner-city pedestrian zones are crammed with little wooden huts that, during business hours and evenings, are host to vendors selling ALL THINGS XMAS.....yet at 4 a.m., it´s a "shack" ghost town INCLUDING the wooden, open-front cabin that houses the straw bales & All -Nativity Scene; birth place of little ol´ handsome, white boy, Jesus, surrounded by plastic lambs, goats, sheep-dudes, etc.

Thus! (And: BEHOLD!) I espy my Motel 6 for the night with warm - real - hay, even a blanket, and - Lodry-Lordy! - they even left the Porch light (Motel 6 ad) on for me and...Yes! There WAS, I repeat, Was a blanket (for some real lamb, goat, or me) which, come the dawn, I purloin in the finest Bohemian fashion and take it all the way South to Karlsruhr...and, spent this Holy night, feeling warm, fine, definitely Spiritual, and - ecconomy size - divine!

Like you would!.....(?).... And the beat goes on.


c 2010 davedelacroix/our man in europe/ Linz-Austria/cafe MAX