Germany in March...

[mandapocalypse]

I'll be in Germany for 2-3 weeks in March...

Wanting to see/do as much as possible, as well as meet as many of you as possible...


What's going on? Recommendations, advice? Punk shows?
Any cheap tricks to get to nearby countries?



:cheers:
:chug:
....PROST!

 

[stove]

...Be a bit more vauge? Where in Germany? it's a decent sized country. How are you going to get around? "tricks" for travel? Try Hitchhiking...Or rideshares...Or local trains...

give some more details and you will get a lot further.

 

[Komjaunimas]

Here goes the basic advises from me ...
1 : I would advise you not to visit Rostock and Magdeburg because those cities has A LOT of nazi skinheads who will be willing to beat the shit out of punks... and there are alot of nazis in rural parts of Germany.
2 : For hitching use hitchwiki.org because its quite hard to get out of towns such as berlin/dortmund/duisburg/essen.
3 : You can buy happy weekend train ticket for 5 people for 37euro and you will be able to ride all RE (Regional express) and RB (Regional Bahn[train]) across country free of charge for friday/saturday/sunday...
4 : As for getting into other countries... you can hitchhike ofcourse or use http://hitchhikers.org http://rideshare.de or ride trains without tickets, it works pretty well, you get kicked off without a fine most of the time. Avoid ICE, EC, IC trains.. if you choose to ride trains and want to keep a low profile (avoid expresses etc...) here is what you do. This will be info for local trains...
a) Getting into Netherlands get to Duisburg, take a train to Venlo and you are in Netherlands, did this for like 10 times, never got fined.
b) Getting into Belgium, get to Aachen, take a train to Liege (this can be risky, got kicked off several times )
c) Getting into France, get to Saarbrucken take a train to Metz (You will get kicked off 75% as its only 2 car train )
d) Getting into Austria, get to Munich take a train to Insbruck (It can be a pain in the ass and you will get kicked out of the train 75%)
e) Getting into Italy, take EC train from Munich to Mestre (We rode in toilet for hours...got kicked out several times, but never fined)
f) There is no local line to Poland, only ICE express Berlin > Warszawa you'll get fucked up 100% in this train ... all my friends were fined, i personally never tried this one.
5 : If you have a bit more money you can fly with http://ryanair.com http://easyjet.com they have pretty decent prices, you just have to book your flights like few weeks in advance.
6 : Shoplifting is a breeze everywhere, me and my friends never spend a cent in Germany ... go for LIDL, ALDI , Plus , Cento, Penny Markt chains its a 100% you wont get caught type shops, they just dont care.
7 : For gigs, meetings, squat actions use http://radar.squat.net www.squat.net or www.punx.nl (its a dutch punk site but it lists German gigs also).
8 : It will be pretty chilly in March so take some warm clothes with you.
9 : For free food (if you are not a shoplifter type) go to train stations (Bahnhof) in bigger towns there are Bahnhoffmissionaires( Free breakfast, shower etc..)
10 : Visit Kopi squat in Berlin, they might let you crash in there for a while...
11 : If you want some more information on something just ask...

If you want to visit Amsterdam i can hook you up with some people i know, because in March ill go to England, atleast those are my plans...

 

[mandapocalypse]

Wow, Komjaunimas, THANK YOU SO MUCH!
So helpful you are!

I'm especially impressed with ryanair.com... I think I'll fly from Dussledorf to Edinburgh one weekend... it's only 30 euro. That's incredible.



I'm flying into Frankfurt from Minneapolis, and staying with some pals in Hagen(Near Dortmund). We will venture to Hamburg and Berlin I know for sure. One friend has a car so this trip will be really easy for me...
I am financing it with my tax refund, which is about $1,000. (Never had this much money before) I'm pretty fucking excited.
The flight to Germany was $550.



Thanks so much for the help, guys....!

 

[Komjaunimas]

as for ryanair.com, go there and watch the tickets when you can buy immediately, because it can get from 30 euro to 130 in 15minutes... i once wanted to buy a flight Riga(Latvia) > Dusseldorf(Germany) for 0.01 Euro, but i didn't have a credit card, so i made a call to my friend, as we were speaking we price went upto 7 Euro, not a big loss but still ...

 

[stove]

Manda, when you have a more specific idea of where you'll be going, let us know. I've got friends spread all over Europe willing to help out w/travel and whatnot, ESPECIALLY hitch-hikers.
in Berlin, check out Project Volunteering and (there's another one, but I don't recall the name ATM)
in Hamburg a buddy of mine runs a very active CS house, I'm sure you can crash if you need to.

 

[XtremXpert]

wow Komjaunimas, I wish everybody would give advices like you

 

[axolotl]

in berlin:

stressfaktor.squat.net lists all the activist events, punk shows, free films, anarchist bars, pay-what-you-want dinners, etc.

^^ kopi is no longer a squat, it was legalized years ago, but it and many of the other housing collectives whose addresses are listed in stressfaktor have guest rooms, the best thing to do is ask in person

 

[bicycle]

Thanks for the link axolotl!

 

[Komjaunimas]

in berlin:
^^ kopi is no longer a squat, it was legalized years ago, but it and many of the other housing collectives whose addresses are listed in stressfaktor have guest rooms, the best thing to do is ask in person

Call it a community housing etc, its still a squat/crash place to me as long as i have a room in there...

 

[axolotl]

^^ of course, it´s just that they pay rent, some houses nearly normal costs so you might not be able to crash for free as long. it´s still folks who are open and active in the radical community, and there are concerts/ bar in the house

berlin also has great dumpsters, try kaufland supermarkets for starters...
and in the evening a lot of bakeries will give you extra bread

oh and there are a ton of nice parks, which never close, and in my experience you can smoke up freely in parks and in most streets if you´re discreet

also if you´re low on cash: you can return plastic and glass bottles to any store that sells the particular beverage brand, a beer bottle gets you € .08 and a large plastic soda or juice bottle, if it´s the right kind, € .25

 

[Komjaunimas]

As for kopi, i don't want to be a d-bag and start flame wars etc, but dont worry ive been there done that i know the situation and everything and i'll always be able to crash in there.

Back to the topic...

Hehe forgot about the bottles, you can find an empty beer bottle, go to a shop find an empty/almost empty beer box (get rid of the full bottles if its an almost empty box) place an empty bottle in it and put it into the machine you should get somewhat 1,5+ euro, haven't tried it in Germany, but works perfectly good in Netherlands, Belgium...
Or steal a 4 liter beer keg, drink the beer and return it into a shop for 5 euros ...

 

[axolotl]

lol i wasn´t doubting that you´ve been to kopi, just trying to give mandapocalypse info... peace and let´s keep this topic useful,

i haven´t seen machines that take whole boxes, but the keg thing is a good idea. apparently you can also photocopy the barcodes and paste them onto plastic cups, if you think it´s worth the trouble, but i do know people who live entirely off returning single bottles.

 

[Komjaunimas]

Also there is a good way to shoplift, put some empty bottles to your backpack, and put everything you want to steal into plastic bags that you could put the whole bag in one time to your backpack when taking empty botles to the machine take the botles out of your backpack and stuff you want to steal into the backpack

 

[axolotl]

ah yeah, it´s even worked to purposely or by accident bring a bunch of bottles that the machine doesn´t accept, and when you check out have them in a bag on top of whatever you want to steal