Kohlfahrt - boy

To the airport there went three,

Wife C, me and Scottish B,

Took a car but didn’t see,

That every bugger in London town,

Would take their car and slow us down,

We arrived with barely time to spare,

And then fucked up royally by turning back onto the motorway for which I should probably take the blame since I was the designated navigator.

And I was using a GPS.

Long story short: 50 minutes left; no exit for 15 miles; realisation that we have to do an extra 30 miles; lots of disappointment; some profanity; sense of helplessness. After 15 miles in 12 minutes; some hope; umpteenth call to the hotel where we arranged “airport” parking to request a taxi primed to go; more hope; fast driving; arrive at hotel; throw keys at manager; no taxi but manager takes us formula one speed to airport; profuse thanks; throw tenner at manager; run through empty check-in; hop on flight; breathe. The hotel manager mentioned that “the best trips start out this way”. Couldn’t agree more; simply arriving felt fantastic.

It’s always great to see my friends in Germany and fortunately events and celebrations are frequent, meaning many people are gathered in the same place making it easy to see everyone at the same time. We were picked up at the airport by S and K who planted Becks into our hands and whisked us away in their beer chariot to the pretty village of Worpswede. K was this year’s Kohl Queen (J was King), which meant a lot of organising and rounding up of the loose Kohlfahrters while en route.

Kohlfahrt. To drink and eat from a cart while playing games with your friends in the freezing cold just within the outer limits of the Bremer countryside. Literally cabbage run or way of the cabbage, this green vegetable decorated the cart and provided the obligatory green in the meat fest that awaited us at the end of our cabbage run
.

We waited on the Saturday at midday in sub-zero temperatures for all the parties to congregate. This morning’s hangover was gone, multiple layers of clothing were applied and stomach was lined from a hearty breakfast. Once we were all assembled, self-inspections were made: Schnapsglas tied to string and hung round neck, check. Tissue in schnapsglas to mop up spillages, check. Pretzel tied to string and hung around neck, check. Bite out of pretzel, check. Becks in pocket, check. Finally, we warmed up our drinking arms with some Jagermeister and then made our way out of the icy car park to the start of our trail.

I don’t know exactly how far we ambled around the country lanes or for exactly what amount of time we were out (though I suspect around six hours), but we were never short of provisions or activities. K + J had done well. Large containers of sausage, cheese and sweets were passed around frequently; the mountain of beer slowly but surely became a mountain of empties. Vodka, schnapps and other spirits were slowly being depleted as the afternoon wore on; as did our coherence. We played a lot of typical Kohlfahrt games which involved footballs, teabags, potatoes and string though not all at the same time and the reward for winning was either kudos or drink (curiously English drinking games tend to have drink as a penalty). In my blurry recollections I see E with a potato in his mouth trying to speak (German tongue twisters perhaps?). I don’t remember understanding what he said but then again I don’t speak German.

The whole walk was an extremely pleasant experience and gave me a chance to catch up with friends I hadn’t seen in a long time; interrupted only by the odd food stop, activity stop or toilet stop. We managed to reach our destination before the sun had gone completely and were glad to enter the warmth of the restaurant where our meat feast awaited. The meal is always traditional; lots of sausage, pork, potatoes and the N German duo of Kohl und Pinkel, which is (aside from being a great name for a children’s tv double act) basically cabbage + haggis. A new Kohl King and Queen were chosen from a hat (P + V will have the honour next year) and we danced the night away to “traditional” music that we later agreed was probably 8/10 on the cheesometer. All in all a Knacken Wochenende.