Wiehengebirge at hotel Wiehen-thermal Struckmeyer 
Traverse Wiehengebirge direction Hille 
Vista Wiehengebirge northward. Many wetlands, which includes storks 
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wetlands, natural areas for grassland birds 
Oa white herons, storks 
That was a good night of sleep. Tosca kept real quiet tonight, tied to the radiator, which was turned off. She wants to jump on beds, chairs and tables. Therefore, she should be tied. She also likes to tear apart sheets and pillows. Very nice. Like a pillow fight, but then with her teeth.
The breakfast was supplemented with breakfast for Tosca and with a self-organized packed lunch for both of us. The wellness hotel lady even advised to take a packed lunch, not knowing that I already did. For Tosca lunch included egg, herring, salmon, ham etc. My whole backpack reeked of fish.
Cheered up after a good sleep and after the various contacts last night on the phone, and since I woke up this morning with the sun in the room (sunshine in my heart, sings Bill Whithers), I went on my way. Wiehengebirge is a tens of kilometers long, narrow, wooded hills ridge, through which run beautiful hiking trails. I crossed it and walked all day on mostly very quiet roads and paths. We saw a lot of deer. In a wetland, except for white herons, also a stork. Sunshine and nice weather alternating with fierce rain showers and hail. Always in my back, so no problem. I walked five hours at a stretch, without pause, without eating or drinking, because I never found a bench, stone or tree trunk to sit on, or because it just splashed. Finally, at 4 pm, another bus shed with a bench. Time for the hams. After lunch Tosca flew even faster over the fields. Today I crossed almost no villages. There seems to be a car-bicycle route in this region, visiting all timbered villages. Maybe an idea for the future. Lübbecke, Minden, Petershagen, Stoltzenau, Nienburg (Weser), Verden, Rothenbrück-wumen, Buchholtz (Hamburg).
When I once will have finished this tour, I want to work out my notes, complete this story with facts of the areas and places where I come through and make more comments. That’ll keep me busy for a few years. I would like to visit certain stretches again by bike or by car, with Sonja, alone or with others.
So I muse eg. the Marskramerpad that I ran last week. Those Marskramers, salesmen traveling by foot, walked from Mazury at the Belarussian-Polish border to the Netherlands, with their merchandise on the back, a couple thousand kilometers. The few pennies they “bijein kretsde” (scraped together) to pay for housing, food etc. truly must have been no fun. I sleep at least still in luxury, although tonight I will be in a YOUTH! Inn. Were these marskramers married? They had to support a family? What a life. Walking, eating, sleeping. Like me, and basically everyone. Yet something to read more about. That’s what I mean by working out my notes.
And I have lots of other, incoherent associations. As eg. the many book finches that I see. That animals, like people everywhere, have their own accents. I met a man in the US, Zaharowitz was his name, who’s phd was about the differences in emphasis in the song of some kind of bird between different regions in Denmark.
Home in Wittem, many years ago, I was visited by Hub V, a man from Wahlwiller. Some decades ago in Wahlwiller finch cages hung to the outside walls of the houses. The finch “tjoepers” counted the number of finished bird songs per minute. The finch who repeated most songs per minute won. The visitor Hub V came into my yard and said, hey, du HAS e Pötje beer (you have a jar of beer). I said what? E pötjebeer! Oet Vols! From Vaals ( 10 km. away). The way finches from Vaals end their tune resembles the words ” pötje beer” ( jar of beer) while the Eijsden finch tune (20 km. further away) ends differently. I forgot how. Indeed, I had the “pötjebeer” bought in Vijlen, Vaals. It seems that finches from Vaals as well as those from Eijsden preferably mate with birds with the same stroke. Well, that way my thoughts turn from left to right.
Shopping in the village, especially dog food. On the way back from shopping I found an Italian restaurant. Ordered a pizza. On top of that I still ordered spaghetti, because 30 km. with backpack over hills and in the rain consumed more calories than one pizza can deliver. I ask the Italian and his Italian wife, why they came to this cold climate. An unclear answer, unclear German, about something when you’re young and look for challange. Now it’s too late, he says to me with melancholy in his voice. Well, I thought, you should have better listened to your father!
In the hostel, the Mindener Strasse 51, three floors, with a total of more than 130 beds. On my floor, the third, I am alone in my four bedded room. Tosca may keep me company. Because she should be tied, I left her in the garage. Near the garbage cans of the hostel I found a still decent mattress and I put it in the garage for Tosca (better friends may say Tos). But: tomorrow morning at 7 am. some technician will come working in the garage and then Tosca must be gone again. We’ll see again. On verra. Now it’s 9:30 pm and again I still have to go infrastructuring: route for tomorrow, looking on the I- pad for shelter, calling etc. Goodnight.
Monday March 30th 2016. Petershagen 29 km
