I went to Münster, Germany last week for the Red Bull Heroes By Nature Surf Movie red carpet rad shit, and now you’re reading about it.

I mean, if you’re gonna go to Germany, you might as well go on the Red Bull gravy train, right? Like, the first class compartment of gravy trains, so to speak.

Once there, I bro’d down with TC and RCJ and also others. I didn’t bru down with Twiggy as he didn’t show since Dungeons was suddenly 20ft and he is real. The movies on show were The Africa Project by Jason Hearn (surfers: Twigg, Royden Bru, Ricky Baz Bru, Frankie Oberholzer bru) and Storm Surfers 3D. These two were part of a red carpet show that was beamed via satellite to over 45 cinemas in 8 countries across Europe.

I left on Wednesday morning, a lovely sunny day. Early on, I had a buttery, salty croissant from the Patisserie du Port in Capb. Then I got a lift to San Sebastian, and then rode the bus to Bilbao airport. There, I had an oily, salty pintxo de tortilla de patatas. Then I flew to Frankfurt, where I had a über salty pretzel. ‘Croissant, bready tatty omelette and pretzel?’ my insides shrieked? ‘We’ll never ever poo again!!!’

More on that later.

I got to Münster and it was sunny and warm and there were people on bikes everywhere. Everywhere! Like Amsterdam x Oxford x the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome times a thousand. Bikes!

Thing is, it’s not like your London-these-days scene where everyone wears all the lycra and clip-in Shimano daps and has four grand’s worth of aircraft grade carbon fibre titanium teflon fuck off unobtanium shafts under their lycra compression fibre coated ass. No, this is kind of sit-upright-comfy-saddle shit, wear your normal get up.

Business men bike past in an upright position, tie flapping over suit shoulder jauntily. Why bike serious when you can bike jaunty? Lose the Shimano clip in shoes, London!

On our way to the Cineplex red carpet we saw a dude riding a bike (obviously) carrying a surfboard in aboard bag under his arm. We threw a shaka and he threw one back. I’m guessing it’s a few hours drive to the (Dutch) coast but hey, surf isn’t dead!

“I’ve never seen a 3D movie before” I said to different folk as we walked.
“WHAT????” “Why???” You serious???”
Never seen one. Never went to see Avatar 3D, as I was washing my hair, plus I suspected the devil or some kind of modern witchcraft. Everyone agreed that I’d chosen an awesome one to break my 3D cherry on. I hoped it’d be RCJ who popped my cherry, of the two. TC is very short.

There were several awesome quotes in the movie but the best one was RCJ on Tom. “He’s got three girls… and he’s kind of turned into one.” chuckled the big wave maniac. The 3D goggle donning audience chuckled too. Heartily. The two had a cool chemistry going throughout the movie, which basically involved TC being either injured or a bit out of sorts, and RCJ heckling him for it.

The Shipstern’s footage at the start was probably the highlight for me. I mean, now I’ve been inside the pit there on a 10ft day from all kinds of angles, in 3D, I feel like I don’t really need to go surf it.

I got some nachos with the chemical yellow cheese-like sludge in the interval (“Nachos & sludge!?!” protested my gut… “We’ll never ever plop!”).

TC and RCJ had been in Berlin the day before and drove to Münster that day, at 315km/h. Yep, 315km/h, according to Tommy. RCJ doesn’t mind driving fast. And seeing as there is no speed limit on the autobahn, he wasn’t even breaking the law.

The next morning I finally went, but it took ages and hurt a bit. Like, a full 15 minutes, read-the-paper type thing, which I never do. Anyway, felt better afterwards.

Then I flew home via Munich, got back late last night. Today I surfed Graviere and even had a couple of modest forehand tunnels. That’s the update for now. X