Bilious Blog…Around Europe in 80 days#65

Made it to Bremen,a city I’m familiar with and like.It’s a bit lefty & progressive in parts,especially where I’m drinking at the moment in the Viertel.The sort of cultural & arty area.I always use Hackney as my template for such places and the Viertel is Hackney with ( small) knobs on,whereas Berlin is what Hackney wishes it was…

Got to Odense station in the dark and wet this morning.The Interrail App said It only recommend I reserve a seat but I couldn’t be arsed and got a single unreserved seat straight away.It’s a rare treat to grab a lone seat especially for a nearly five hour journey so I savoured the solitude…the border Polizei did get on but not at the stop actually on the border.The train stopped there but nobody got on then about ten minutes later it came to a shuddering halt in the middle of nowhere.Maybe the cops were on a smoke break( this is Germany after all,I have seen coppers smoking on duty in the street) They did their bit,their bit being a cursory look at our passports and moving on.Frankly I don’t see the point unless they’re all Terminators and can PinPoint baddies that way…

Had to change at Hamburg where I was informed by Rikky via Facebook that it’s a bank holiday in Germany.Only Germany would make you go to work monday then have the Tuesday off rather than making it a long weekend.Anyway my connection was only ten minutes away but I wanted some food( and a smoke of course) and Bremen is pretty close the next train being only an hour later,so I thought…grabbed some scran and went outside and immediately got Stopped by two people asking for a smoke so moved back to the platform for a tab.Incidentally there were a lot of Polizei vans outside so not sure what that was about…

Noticed on the indicators there was a Bremen train before the next one advertised on my app,went to information to see if I could use it on that and got a “ yea don’t worry about it I’m sure it’ll be fine” they also told me it wouldn’t be going at the time advertised but at 1-15.The train actually left at a totally different time altogether…I have noticed much more of a lassier faire attitude with German train Staff over the years.I’d say they’re a lot less officious than their British counterparts and their train journeys are much the better for it…got the train,guess what? Single seat.That’s a bingo! Never got my ticket checked either..,

Hotel is close to the Hauptbahnhof so found it easily.Got an email from them yesterday giving me the code to get my key.Fine,no worries but there was no indication either in the email or at the hotel which room was actually mine.Ah this could be interesting…

Got to the 3rd floor and all the doors had names of European cities on them like Amsterdam,Rome,Istanbul etc and I saw one with London so I Sherlock Holmes‘d it and figured out that was the code for our rooms.Tried my key and a stressed looking woman opened the door.Shit…an awkward five seconds silence then I managed to explain the situation.She looked at my key and told me I was on the fifth floor( of course I was.I have missed you Germany) “How do you know?” “ You’re in room Sofia” 

Now look I’m not stupid even though sometimes I can be as thick as mince but if I have a key with “ Sofia” on it printed with a phone number it’s my assumption I should call that number and ask for Sofia if I have any problems…so I didn’t Sherlock it,I didn’t even Watson it.I Mr Bean’d it…all sorted.It’s a lovey room,nice and high up and I hope I did’nt give that poor woman in London nightmares…

Anyway I’m having a bevvy in Viertel.Bank Holiday in Germany is like a Sunday only more so.Less bars open for a start so I’m stopping here…gone from not being able to smoke within 20 metres of a pub in Sweden to every table having an ashtray inside the bar.As I said I have missed you Germany…

Ciao for now…