Day 5: 12.06.2024, 163km, 1510hm
I’m awake at 4.30am. I start by repairing my trousers, patching them with glove fabric. After tea and breakfast, I set off in the first rays of sunshine, which don’t really warm me up yet.
I decide where I’m going to sleep and plan my route towards Göttingen. It looks hilly, but doable. I’m still underestimating it at this point.
At the bakery, I’m proud when I ask for bread rolls instead of buns for the first time, even though I find the word difficult to say. I then outed myself as Bavarian when I asked for the plum cake. However it is labelled, it is a very welcome and tasty refreshment.
It gets challenging. I’ve misjudged the distance, metres in altitude and terrain and the path into Göttingen is going to be tough. It’s also a lot of meadows and steep, coarse gravel. But it’s still great fun - perhaps even more so than before.
The hard work is rewarded with a dinner from and in my host Lena’s flat share. The flat share is full of colourful political posters and feels lived in and loved. Discussions about language and the extent to which gender attributions and roles are independent of culture keep us awake for a long time. My most dangerous place to sleep so far is probably the mattress, which protrudes a little over the gallery - I can’t move too much in my sleep.
Repair trousers with glove fabric
It’s cold!
