Braunshweig, Germany

Prost! The word you say when you do your cheers with a beer. Our well deserved German beer deserved a prost after our money making venture yesterday. Thalassa and I earned 25 euros on one of the main cobblestone streets in the older part of the Braunshweig’s city center. We sat down on a bench took out our voices and instruments and began playing all the songs in our repertoire. When it came to singing the traditional German children song about fish, two young children approached us and joined in. One of the lovely things about playing in the streets wherever you go is the people that we have met whilst doing this. I remember checking into our flight in Sofia, Bulgaria ready to put up some kind of argument in attempting to get my guitar case on as a carryon. At the counter the big Bulgarian man with his arms crossed and straight face looked at my guitar case up and down and then at me. I was about to act in shock when he would tell me he wouldn’t allow it as a carry-on for exceeding the size limit. Rather, I was told I could carry it on if we played a song for the pilot and his flight attendants. With an agreement on the table, I happily carried my guitar with my onto our flights to Geneva via Warsaw ☺ Its funny, leaving Bulgaria flying over the great mountainous Balkan Range and the grand Danube River out my window, I had little idea we would end hitchhiking along Germany’s black forest where this major international river originates. We were going to attempt to play on the streets of Munich - city very well renowned for music – only to learn buskers in Munich must go through an audition process before given a spot on the street. Braunsweig on the other hand has a lack of competition and its understandable why with more inhabitants going about their daily routines rather than tourists visiting sites in Munich.

Here in Braunsweig, we have been given a little apartment to stay in by an old friend, Susanne whom last I saw before hiking out of Costa Rica’s jungles three and a half years ago. During the six days of non-stop constant downpour in the jungle during Christmas, her guitar playing and voice is what brought myself and the other interns some light during a rather dark depressing time. Her boyfriend is a fantastic classical pianist and gave us a concert before they left a few days ago. Braunshweig is actually home to Steinway which doesn’t at all leave me surprised with how good of a player he is. He gave me a song to practice whilst they are away to practice as a duet when he returns. As a food science expert Susanne travels around the country of Germany and offered to take us with her but the thought of a few days of relaxing in one place was too tempting of an idea of myself and Thalassa.

Our busking ended with Edelweiss, the song sung in The Sound of Music. Nate found one during out trek up to Ladakh last September in Zanskar Valley. The flowers are white and smell delicious. I tried looking for them when we were in Switzerland where they are the country’s national flower but they are only found in the high elevations of the alps. The song was sung to me by my mother a lot growing up because of her love for that film.

Sitting in the streets of Braunshweig, Germany, the city that granted Hitler residency before he rose to power and created the Nazi party, we sang a song that was written originally as farewell that Captain von Trapp, Maria and his family would bid to Austria when escaping from World War II. And so I played and Thalassa sang and the passing people continues to pass.