sunday 1 – go for meal with andy, sue and dan at mykonos and then leave early to go to teenage fanclub concert at strom on lindwurmstr – was quite good

monday 2 – am finishing off the paul mccartney biography by myles

wednesday 4 – supposedly the postponed billy bragg concert but this time got cancelled

friday 6 – set off from flat at 6.15am to get s-bahn then train to münster to visit Eve. We arrive in good time and check-in to sleep-station.de finishing a call and then we walk along the Aasee bank and then back to the Cafe Malik where we have a relaxing meal together inside and catching up together with her.
go back to hostel for tea and then bed, we’re both tired out from the early start and have a restless night with the window open listening to the club downstairs going to sleep and woken by the trains from the station in the morning.

saturday 7 – get croissants from schrunz along walbeckstr and take back for breakfast

meet evie and take some stuff to her new place, hi-fi which we’d brought up and a load of other stuff

get coffee on hansaring at ExKaffee sitting outside on a sunny day

wander around to the hafen area passing the hot jazz club and then along to the canal where we see a long barge passing and a couple of sailing clubs

walk back to the kunsthalle where eve’s planned a visit to a young artist’s event, it is interesting, i liked the show of mirrors on the inside of tiles arranged a bit like three big lampshades but with the tiles hanging down and moving in the air currents gently it is more like a “mobile”, it was really difficult to catch your reflection in the gaps, that presumably being the objective, on one set you couldn’t see your face at all or i couldn’t .. the tiles had various phrases on some, but the idea i got was of not being able to really see yourself from the inside (unless you stood on the inside) and that the outer “pressures” and messages got in the way of this self-reflection ability.

there was another big exhibit of a two women from korea acting out being “vogelmenschen” and talking about the magic of imagination and flight in a dense forest, as well as the tragedy of loss as one of the two dies and the surivival of love, at least that’s what i got out of it, and on the 49th day of hte death the spirit passes on into the other world in korean folklore, so they steal the body and take it to the woods so this can happen.

we meander along via the market at the domplatz with break for refreshments on the stalls, just making it and then relax in the botanical gardens

which leads us nicely into the highlight that evie has lined up for us at the vielsicht-festival.de in the schlossgarten next door to it

we eventually get a good table near food and drinks stands and stay a good, relaxing few hours listeining to the following singer/songwriters

Hannah melea – guitarist, plays a lot of barre, even picking and uke type chords with capo on 5th fret which gives it a slightly different feel and she mixes pickings on some songs, strums on other with a melancholic twist, with here motif for the set on the program as “MELANCHOLY IS MY DRIVE, IT‘S WHAT MAKES ME WRITE”

Lara Mbaye – soulful singer with powerful voice, maybe needed a band to match the strength of her singing rather than the keyboard then later guitar(ist) backup but really nice easy-listening soul/jazz feel and some nice lyrics, her motif being “IF IT TAKES MONEY TO BE HAPPY, YOUR SEARCH WILL NEVER END”

Lia – katie liked this one best for variety and lyrical sense, also varied it quite a bit with a good range of guitar tricks (hammer-ons, pull-offs, bass runs and percussive slaps) and using a classical guitar
she got folks to sing along and mixes 50:50 german and english often in the same song
she uses an interesting intonation on words, me joking about “lo-ast” and “alo-ane”, quite irish
motif is: “LIA (IST) BEWEGT; MACH(T) DIE AUGEN ZU…!”

interestingly all three on spotify, lia was the hardest to find – so many similar – so following now

we ate from the foodtruck, whose motto was “dining differently” and I’d seen the restaurant in town earlier, both falafel and seitan döner were really good

we take the bus having seen/heard all we’d wanted to and went to the schallplattencafe on welbeckstr. along from us, where there was a dj set playing soul and r&b, was good, i got an LP for Evie by Penguin Cafe Orchestra.

we part and get an early night

sunday 8 – two breakfasts to kill the time before our train, one at “teilchen und beschleunigen” with its vast range of bagels and coffees for 5€, this was packed as was the reserved-out drei-klang, which we couldn’t get in at, then back to Hauptbahnhof for the relaxing, “straight” cafe attached to the bakery “der gute bäker”, quiet after the liveliness of the beach boys at the first place.

say our goodbyes and take the long journey back after a super relaxing time

further afield and ahead of what the russian regime might say tomorrow, an article saying the three choices are escalation, de-escalation (‘special operation’ done and just holding what’s taken) or sandwiching (creating neither and a never-ending ‘frozen’ comflict)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/07/putin-choices-are-filled-with-peril-on-the-eve-of-victory-day-parade-russia-ukraine
countered that this correspondent sees similarly but dragging on:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61348287
all to be compared with this from two weeks ago, albeit more moscow-oriented:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/27/ukraine-war-end-putin-russia-talks

saturday 14, us – flight out to charlotte in north carolina, watched a couple of films:
pulp fiction
schach based on a novel by stefan zweig

go to rookie’s sports bar

sunday 15, us – look round guitar shops nearby:
https://stores.guitarcenter.com/nc/raleigh/732/
https://locations.samash.com/nc/raleigh/58/
sam ash one was better and had the ibanez af95 which i borrowed for the time here

goto sports bar and have pizza

monday 16, us – stayed at work for lunch of pizza from last night, tooth broke!

tuesday 17 – go to food truck for lunch since works canteen closed due to covid outbreak

saturday 21, us – go out to outlet centre a few miles away then go to Maggio’s italian restaurant for one of the better meals

sunday 22, us – have meal at farmside kitchen sitting outside with oli, florian and fernando

tuesday 24, us – go to the pit pork restaruant in raleigh

wednesday 25, us – go to baseball game durham bulls playing against charlotte – was actually one of the best evenings

thursday 26, us – go to tabernicas restaurant and celebrate oli’s birthday

friday 27, us – go out to korean restaurant

saturday 28, us – back at rookies

monday 30, us – eat at hotel bar and go early to bed

tuesday 31, us – eat out at cheescake factory