Hack & Lack

So last Saturday there was a giant graffiti festival in Minden, called Hack & Lack. No idea why, it just is. The local youth center, the Anne-Frank-Haus, (yes, that Anne Frank, no she didn't live here; I asked) builds a bunch of walls each year, including a replica Regional Bahn car, for people to spray paint and they let them spray pretty much anything on the grounds. It's the largest festival of its kind in Germany and there were spray painters, artists really, from all over Germany. I met one guy from Berlin and heard of another one from Köln. The stuff was really really good and the atmosphere was cool too. It was set up around a large field and there was a DJ in the middle and of course tons of aerosol in the air.

Not a real train car

 I went with my host sister and hung with her friends for a spell, but there were some kids from my grade there as well and I talked to them too. Got some contacts for my fancy new smartphone!(sometimes playing dumb and language skill impaired with salesmen works to your advantage) They'd found a new six year old friend named Mehmet, who was rather skilled at spray painting apparently. There was a kids section where they could have fun spraying cardboard sheets and stuff however they wanted. But Mehmet was a cool character and loved the attention, consequently he wanted to 'tag' us all.

And 'tag' he did!

This reminded me a bit of hipster Richmond a bit; the whole abnormal art. But it takes talent and I really liked most of it. There were a few that I would look at for five minutes and suddenly see the words that were there. It's crazy. Go to my Flickr and check out some more of the pictures I took!

A couple other observations from the evening. I'm spreading the word "swag" around the world and explaining hip hop lyrics more than I thought I would.

One girl from the next town over, who I was talking to, initially thought that I was from Denmark because of how I was talking. Apparently I speak German with a Danish accent? I got that a lot in Bad Laasphe too, "Which country are you from?" I think its funny.

My personal favorite

P.S. All these pictures were taken on my fancy new German cell phone!