I noticed it around number 40. Written in yellow on the road. I looked back and couldn't see if it had started with number 1. I had been thinking of other things. I had been listening to the sound in the trees that resembled far away singing. 40, 49, 53. 54, today's number. 60, 66, 72, 80. I had my camera ready for the 96, the number of days my walk will last. But at 95 it stopped. I wondered what it meant. I knew what it meant. Nothing.
I walked through woods. I wore my headphones. I listened to Bang on a Can singing songs about loosing and finding. Small streams, spooky trees, sunlight falling through young green leaves, sandy roads. It felt as if I was actually walking through the songs, as if I was inside the music.
After three nights in the woods it was time for a shower and a thorough body search. There are more ticks this year than I've ever seen.
There were two hotels in Sulzbach-Rosenveld. The smallest one had a sign saying "Flair Hotel". I translated it into "expensive hotel" which was correct. €69 for a single room. That's my budget for 4 days. The other hotel had rooms for €30,- but was completely booked.
When I don't know what to do I wait. Usually something happens. I waited in the hotel lobby, rethinking my options, almost ready to find another comfortable forest floor to sleep on, when suddenly the hotel lady remembered there was an empty room she had decided not to rent out because it didn't have a flatscreen tv. She had ordered 46 tv's but only 45 were delivered. If I wanted, I could have the room with a discount. €25 including breakfast.
The room was great. It reminded me of hotel Kiev in Bratislava where I stayed many times. Nothing had been changed since it was redecorated in the seventies. In Kiev it wasn't just the furniture and carpet that was from times long gone, but the sheets and towels too. You could almost see through them. In the Bayerischer Hof the towels are fluffy and the sheets like new. And the tiny square tv fits the room well.
(today's story is for Ineke, she sang for me today, I think I heard her but it might have been my imagination)
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