Neighborhoods: Münster

Covid times, or the beginning of the pandemic led me back to my roots, I had to go back home as it was the best option to get through these strange times. Space was important and something luxurious, to be able to be in a garden without being told to wear a mask or social distance was pure luxury compared to living in a small flat in the city.

I had no plans to visit or even stay that year, if it wasn’t for covid I wouldn’t have gone back but the circumstances in Barcelona were just too intense. My beloved city had turned into a prison so I had to leave. The spanish police and their measures were out of control, the living situation wasn’t comfortable and there wasn’t much space at all. Wiered sicknesses were creeping in and the worries about 5g, airplane trails and reckless governments were stronger than ever. Spanish people live in rather small flats and spend most of their family or social time outside in parks, streets and plazas. Now that was taken away we were left crammed into our tiny, cold and damp apartments. No space, no comfort and in our case not a single nice thing in the front part of the flat. The dog had destroyed it all, it was just blank walls and tiled floors. Besides smoking quite a few spliffs the roof terrace with a bit of sun around noon and the occasional walk to Lidl were the things to look foreward to.

Out of all my international friends, people who live in other places than their homecountries, almost everybody went back to their homecountries or even to their hometowns to stay at the parents place. Everybody was happy to spent some quality time with their loved ones and it was just supposed to be a couple of weeks at the start. It did reunite quite a few families, people came back, but it also separated many because people had different opinions about what was happening. To find another place to pass the time during lockdown seemed impossible, airbnbs were unbookable and finding proper roomates somewhere seemed hard, so it was either to stay in Barcelona or leave back home to my parents place. I tried to stay in Barcelona but the living situation combined with lockdown became stressful after a while, it wasn’t too hard to make the decision to leave in the end.

I was so happy to be back on my parents farm in Germany for the first couple of weeks, just to be able to sit outside and enjoy some of the freedoms that had been taken away in Barcelona. I hadn’t visited the family in about two or three years because of a dispute I can’t remember anymore, but they happily took me back in.

It was nice to see them all again, catch up and spent some quality time together. That was one of the very few nice things that came out of the pandemic, things slowed down and suddenly there was time to do all these family oriented things, we appreciated being together as a family. At the same time it did feel a bit odd to be back, return to the same paths I had fled so many times before. The last time I visited was for Christmas 3 years ago and before that I don’t even know. It felt like coming back to the start and it seemed as if all the efforts in-between were worthless. To start out in the same position for the next idea, a few years older, slightly wiser, it was like hitting the reset button but not in a good way, the nagging parents always on my back. Come back, recollect and readjust but figure out the next adventure quickly before everything starts to turn sour. Sounds great but coming up with new adventures under pressure isn’t always easy. This time the situation was a bit different, there was an element of force, something out of our control with new rules for life the pandemic tried to force upon us. (When) is it going to end? was one of the topics we talked about a lot. Will there be one? Will we still be able to travel? What’s the the ultimate goal? We were lucky to have some sort of consensus within our family, we all knew that this was some sort of huge betrayal, that we had to be careful and also not to take the whole thing to close to our hearts. I’m sure families with opinions on both sides of the spectrum had a much harder time.

I had been waiting around for months and by following the news It slowly became evident that we were at the beginning of something rather than the end. New measures, predictions and precautions every day, more and more things were still closing down and the intensity of the suppression of anything that was fun made it clear. At some point nearly everything was prohibited and the few things that were left would probably be soon enough. Not a great perspective at all. Considering the things they did in the 2nd Corona year with the 1/2/3G rules this was still just fun and games. Living with the parents wasn’t as easy as it was in the first weeks, in the end it is their house and they make the rules. Living their idea of an ideal lifestyle was ok for a while and is totally acceptable whilst visiting for short periods of time but the whole thing had turned into a lot more than the cosy two weeks at home the governments had communicated initially to get people to obey.

Luckily an old friend from teenage years named Felix had his summer residence in Münster which wasn’t too far from my parents place. He lived on a beautiful old farmstyle property with a big garden and quite a fair bit of space which was important because the pandemic didn’t let us enjoy any of the outside freedoms we were used to anymore.

He had to stop his travels as well and came home for the pandemic, just like everyone else. I went to visit him and we reconnected over a couple of beers, I’m not sure but we hadn’t seen each others in years. He offered that I could stay in the spare room upstairs for the lenght of the pandemic right away, or at least for a while. That must have been around April/May of 2020, a good two months into all the fun activities our governments had organized for us.

Being able to stay at Felix place was pretty much the best that could’ve happened during those intense times, staying with a friend for the pandemic in a nice house without any parental influence was perfect. To visit the parents is always great, but once it turns into a living rather than a visiting situation it only lasts a couple of weeks before it turns sour. Every meal and pretty much all my social interactions were with my parents which got tough after a while, I love them but they are very performance oriented people who don’t like to party. I also had no old friends living in the area, my brother lived in my parents house as well but with his girlfriend, which meant I could meet “them” but never really “him” so I wasn’t that interested.

Münster was a great option, a beautiful historical city with a university, a nice lakeside and the classic old city core. A nice place to live in the central part of Germany, pricey enough, one of those small big towns out in the countryside. This made for a good mix of traditional Germans, students and foreigners.

Other benefits of moving there were two skateparks within a 10 Minute cycling distance of the house, a solid blade gang that I was able to connect with, a reliable source of weed and enough time and space to smoke as much as I wanted. (It was the pandemic after all) Considering the situation things were pretty sweet overall. I really enjoyed the daily rituals we developed, early coffees and talks in the kitchen with the morning sun peaking through the big windows were always a favourite, discussing the newest developments, laughing at the dumb politicians, trying to predict the next steps out or further into the pandemic and talking about shitcoins were frequent topics. Working out, dieting and nutrition were important as well, we both had different methods, I was mostly going for runs or to skate while Felix had all sorts of stuff going on, from the real gym to the home gym, there was the pedalton, he also climbed the stairs or lifted weights in the living room. With all the fitness activity came the dieting. For me it mostly meant to try and eat as many vegetables as possible whilst not going too crazy on the sugar. Felix on the other hand was counting calories, making for very small and thin dinners sometimes. Once a week we had our big day which was called “Schlemmertag”, a day where Felix (and sometimes myself) would spent a lot of time to prepare the tastiest comfort foods like pizza or burgers or other dishes that wouldn’t fit any dieting program. It was the day to look forward to, the food was always great, ending in a foodkoma, made with the best ingredients and lots of love in the preparation process. The days leading up to a foodday were rather thin mealwise as the dishes only relied on a few plant based ingredients. Most of the time we would be able to eat the leftovers the next day as well because Felix just made too much, better than too little. It didn’t make sense to just prepare tiny portions of all the great foods, so we turned it into one big and one small(er) food day most of the time. Not to forget the equally great dessert to go along with it for absolute satisfaction. Due to the pandemic all the restaurants and bars were closed so there wasn’t much to do in the evenings or later at night, going out wasn’t a thing for me in Germany anymore. We would start watching TV series and after a bit of back and forth we settled for the walking dead. We were both skeptical of the zombies and the shows idea in general but got caught up in it quickly and started watching a couple of episodes every other night as the evening ritual. The TV series lasted to this day, it’s 2023, I came back to visit during another more personal crisis and we are still watching the last episodes of the show