Germany Trip 2009: Part 1
It's about 9pm on Tuesday, May 26, 2009. I am sitting in a tent, in the rain, pitched about 200 feet from the Baltic Sea and it could not be any better. My Germany trip is coming to an end with only 1/3 of the time left. I am writing my blog as Dominik drops of his friend at his house; the camping ground we are at closes the gate at 10pm, because they want to limit the noise at night. I guess I should start at the beginning and tell you how I ended up in a tent, in the rain, on Rügen (Germany's largest island).
I arrived in Frankfort Airport -- after a 9-hour plane ride -- at 10am Germany time on Monday, May 18, 2009. I then found my way (all by myself, if I may add) to the long distance train station, where my luggage was waiting. After a short nap on a bench my train arrived at noon. I got on the train and knew I was so tried -- my eyes were red and itchy -- that I needed to set my alarm for when the train was to arrive in Bonn; I then fell asleep. My alarm sounded and I arrived in Bonn right on time. Dominik and his mom picked me up and we drove to Dominik's place. I then slept for a few hours to catch up on my sleep. At 5pm Dominik woke me up to go to dinner with his new beau (Lars -- could it be any more German?) and to see the city. After, we went back to Dominik's for a full night sleep.
Dominik and I talked about what we were going to do now that I was in Germany. We came up with a road trip of northern Germany. On my study abroad trip I was mainly in southern Germany, so going to northern Germany was an exciting idea -- see the Baltic Sea.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009 we got up around noon. I went to see Miriam at AIB Willhemlstrasse (my program coordinator from my German study abroad trip). After I saw the changes they made to the facility, she took me out for coffee. We reminisced about my classmates and talked about what I am going to do now that I have graduated. I told her about my plans for traveling north Germany with Dominik. She told me I would love Rügen because it was so beautiful. At 4:30pm, I grabbed an U-Bahn back to Domink's place.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009 we went up to Köln to see Dominik's good friend Boris. One of Boris' friends got a new closet system, so Boris purchased his old one. We helped Boris move the old closet system out of the one apartment to his. I say, "we" helped him move, but I just stood around. I never thought about this, but moving large objects in a second language is very hard. You use a lot of words when moving things together: left, right, higher, lower, faster, slower, watch the wall, so on. When you think about it, when you are in a rush -- or in pain -- you yell out words in your native tongue -- hence, why it was a good idea not for me to help.
To thank us, Boris took us to dinner at a Cubin restaurant and then to a movie, Star Trek (yes, in English). The restaurant was amazing. We each got a different type of calzone. I got one with Spanish sausage, cheese, and herbs. I had seen the movie before, but it was worth seeing again. Oh, yeah, Boris speaks English -- it was nice to talk more then just pleasantries to someone new. Come to find out, Boris is a producer of one of Germany's popular TV talk show "Stern TV," and travels to the USA quite often. He was a very nice guy; I can see why Dominik is friends with him.
On the way home we gassed the car. Now, normally I would not write about gassing up a car, but in this case it deserves it. America is falling behind in technology -- or just not implementing it. I have blogged before about "green" fuels, but never used it. In Germany they now have Liquefied petroleum gas(aka LPG). The car we had used both traditional fuel and LPG. It had two tanks for each fuel. The cool thing is that in the car you flipped a switch and the car switched fuel. What is the benefit of LPG? The cost. Traditional fuel cost around 2 euro a liter, whereas LPG is 55 euro cents a liter. The negative to LPG is you get a little less horse power when accelerating, but about the same milage. It looked so futuristic when you filled the car. At the end of filling, when it broke the seal to release the filler, it would spray the extra LPG like a space ship. Awesome!
Speaking of space ships, on Thursday, May 21, 2009 we went to the Technical Museum in Speyer, Germany. The ,,Technik Museum" houses a mechanical and technical collection, such as a space shuttle, Bowing 747, fighter jets, helicopters, cars, trackers, U-boot, and more. Interestingly they had a lot of German WWII plans, swastika and all. My favorite things were the U-Boot and Lufthansa 747 (it was the same type of plane I came over to Germany with this trip). Titled at and angle.
In the afternoon we picked up Lars and went up to Sarah's (Dominik's sister) place. Sarah, Guido (Sarah's beau), Dominik, Lars, David (a friend of the family that I met on my study abroad), and I went to dinner around 7pm. Dominik, Sarah, Guido, and David spoke minimal to very good English, hence a nice conversational night. Sarah and Guido kept buying me ,,Kinder Bier" (beer mixed with cola) all night -- they got me to opened up and talk. Sarah said, "This is the most I have ever heard you talk," I responded, "yeah, all it takes is social lubrication." We were at the restaurant until 11pm -- over 4 hours. Dominik left around 10pm to drop his beau at home and left me with the others. At first I was petrified; but the night and conversation was really good -- mainly about the differences between American, Germany, and Britain. When Dominik got back, he brought his friend Toto (which I met on my study abroad). It was Toto's birthday so he brought him out to celebrate. At 1am, Dominik and I took Toto home and then went back to Bonn.
On Friday, May 22, 2009, Dominik got up at 5am to take his Sister and Guido to the Düsseldorf Airport; they went to Spain for holiday. I would have gone with because it would be the last time I could see them before I go home. But when I got up I had a massive headache and my legs ached. So I stayed and slept. Dominik got back at 9am and slept a bit more. We got up at noon and went shopping for our road trip. We wanted to get two cheep folding chairs so decided to go to Ikea. We got stuck in traffic for two hours -- what should have been 10 minutes -- for two 6 euro chairs; what happen to "just a quick trip to Ikea?" (A trip to Ikea is never quick). Dominik had almost everything else for camping; we just needed food. We packed the car and headed for Berlin. I told Dominik we "have a small grocery store in the car." Honestly, we did. We had fruits, vegetables, 5 different sodas, candy, chips, breads, cheese, and a lot of meats. The car was our own little mobile apartment (home for the next week ) and the world was our bathroom -- hmm, on second thought that sounds terrible. We used the autobahn's (highway system) rest stops for that.
We arrived in Berlin very early on Saturday, May 23, 2009. Dominik knew a safe, respectable, and peaceful rest stop on the side of the autobahn, so we pitched the tent and slept. Around noon, we got up, freshened up, and went to downtown. It just so happened to be Germany's 60th Birthday so the town was full of people, events, food, and music. It was a perfect day to arrive in Berlin; could not have been planed any better. When we got to downtown, there was a televised concert with, I say, thousands of people. We watched for a few and saw some of Germany's famous people, like Boris Becker and Eva Padberg. After, we walked around Berlin, went and saw many of the landmarks: Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate), Holocaust Memorial (Dominik's first time), the Siegesäule (Victory Column in honor of Prussian victory over France in 1870), Parliament Building, Tiergarten, and Sony Center. 
I wanted to visit a Sony store to get a battery car charger for my camera -- we only had two bars and still 4 days left without any way to charge it. Disappointingly, they did not have a car charger -- we came to the conclusion, "if it dies, it dies. We will still have our mental memories" (luckily, we found a way -- I'll get to it later). We had dinner at the car we went to sleep and got up early to drive to Berlin's main train station.
After parking at the main train station on Sunday, May 24, 2009, we got a two-hour train ride to Szczecin, Poland. We went to Poland for to reasons: I wanted to add another country to my list of visited places (as well as see Poland) and Dominik wanted to trace some of his heritage. Dominik is German, but born in Poland. How does that work you ask? Well, remember WWII? Szczecin was once in Germany, given to Poland after WWII. So Dominik's family was German, in Germany, but then it became Poland and Dominik was born with a Polish birth certificate. Got it? Okay.
Anyway, back to the sorry, we arrived in Szczecin around 9am. Before the start of the trip we booked a rental car in Poland over the Internet. We had to select the Airport Avis because it would not let us select the Avis in the downtown. You're probably wondering why we didn't drive the other car to Poland? Well, Poland is known for cars being stolen; the insurance on the other car would not cover us in Poland unless we paid 400€. It was cheaper to rent a car in Poland (insurance included). When we arrived at the train station we asked the taxi how much to go to the airport, over 300 ZL (Zloty) (~ $75) and over 50 km (40 minutes). So we called the Avis and found out she just left the downtown Avis with the car and was driving to the airport. We told her we were downtown -- she was, what we presume, slightly angry. We took a taxi to the downtown Avis and met up with her. She was very nice and understanding. She told us they are normally not open on Sunday and was working today just for us -- we gave her a 8 ZL tip (~ $2) for her trouble; come to find out, it was her first tip ever in 4 years of working at Avis. We also discovered that she was there with her husband and -- what a coincidence -- her baby son Dominick; maybe that is why she gave us a 15% discount.
Once we finally got the car, we went to see the apartment where he grew up for 4 years of his life and his Grandmother's house. Okay, if you're not already riveted by this posting, here is where the story gets good. Dominik really wants to find out about his dad's side of the family. With his dad already past and a bad family rivalry, his only connection was his grandmother's neighbor. Problem, Dominik does not speak Polish and we doubted that the neighbor spoke English. Solution, Dominik came up with the idea to go to the University area and see if one of the students would come with us and be a translator (most of the younger generation in Europe speaks English). The first person we found said she would love to help, but would not go anywhere with us. I truly thought that this was so not going to happen, but Dominik persisted. I thought, who is there right mind would get into a car with two strangers from another country? Answer: the second guy we asked; that's who! His name was Michael. He was studying chemistry. He was 27.
We took Michael to Dominik's grandma's house -- sadly, the neighbor was not home. So we decided to go on our second errand, shopping. Sarah and Dominik's Mom knew were going to Poland so they all wanted specific Polish food for memory sake. I got 450 PL (~ $99) in sausages, candy, flavored toothpaste-shaped concentrated milk stuff, bread, and mustard. Michael took us around and pointed out what was traditionally Polish. At the end of shopping, we saw the time. We told Michael we would only need him for around an hour. It had been two hours now, and he was supposed to meat his girlfriend, who was now pissed. We wanted to help, so we took him to where he was to meet her. We went with to show that he was not lying to her about to strangers driving him around. When we got to the meeting place, a teeth grinding angry girlfriend greeted us. After Michael and his girl talked for a bit we told them we wanted to think them for their generosity and patients with dinner. Before dinner, we stopped off at the cemetery to visit Dominik's grandpa, grandma, and father's graves. It was very emotional. We took a few pictures of the graves because neither Dominik, sister, nor his mother had any photos and rarely went to Poland.
After checking to see if the neighbor was home (surprise, surprise, she was not) we went to the city center for a quick tour -- we went to the highest point in the city, the top of the church (completely built of brick). The church was unusual; it was also a memorial for the fallen: seamen, holocaust, wars, so on. It was a church for everyone. We then went to dinner at a traditional Polish restaurant called the "Karczma Polska" (Polish Inn). Some of the best food I have had. I do not know if it was because I was so hungry, or if it was just amazing. Dominik's meal was fantastic -- a rolled up tenderized stake, stuffed with a terrific filling, served with asparagus, salad, and potatoes.
After dinner, we went to drop the car off at Avis and then decided to just walk back to the mina train station. Michael told us that it would only take 15 minutes and the taxi we took from the train station to downtown was a huge rip-off. The driver charged us double what it should have been. Once the car was safely turned in, we remembered that big box of Polish food. At the store, for easy caring we put everything in a big box. It was so heavy Dominik and I had to carry it Dutch style. It was so warm outside; sun blaring and our arms were so tired. About half way the box began to break. We could just imagine the box giving up in the middle of the road and Polish food running everywhere. Dominik and my arms were so tired, the sun got to us. We suddenly just creak up in the middle of the street, almost dropping the box -- we where like giggle little schoolgirls.
We stopped to get Michael's girlfriend's bike on the way to the train station. Oh yeah, to make her day worse, when she was ridding to meet us at the city center she hit something that popped the front tire. What a great day -- how do you survive a bad day? Laughing at two giggling, delirious, foreigners caring a breaking box of Polish food on a damaged bike. Anyway, we put the breaking box on the bike and walked to the train station. We finally got to the train station around 8pm, said goodbye to Michael, his girl, and waited for our train back to Berlin -- missing the early connection by two munities. We were sitting in the middle of nowhere, giggling at each other, eating the flavored toothpaste-shaped concentrated milk stuff. The whole place looked as if it was about to fall apart; neglected and run down. We were in such a strange mood. Everything was making fun of us; people walking by and even the birds in the rafters. We would yell, "Shut up" they would "hoot;" "shut up," "hoot," "shut up," "hoot." It drove is mad. Also, amazingly, by a fluke we discovered our train was waiting at the other end of the station. If we hadn't of stumbled upon it, we would have been stuck in Poland till the morning. We arrived in Berlin around 11pm, got the car, and headed for Rügen.
After a couple of hours of driving, we pulled over at 3am on Monday, May 25, 2009 and pitched the tent. We slept for about 4 hours, got back in the car, and drove the last hour to the furthest eastern part of the island. We picked up one of Dominik's friends. He gave us a quick tour of the city and also showed us a good camping place that had reserved tent sites, water, electricity, showers, and bathrooms. Sleeping on the side of the autobahn for the last 4 days, this place sounded like heaven. We reserved the site we found that all our paperwork came out wrong. They misspelled Dominik's name, gave us the wrong end dates, and the wrong camping site parcel (we did not notice that until one night in).
Even with the paper work problems, the camping ground and facilities were immaculate. Our site was just on the other side of the dyke from the Ostsee (East Sea, AKA Baltic Sea). The forest was calm, clear blue skies, warm sun, and slight cool breeze. We set up the tent and grilled for dinner -- fantastic. What was even more fantastic was that the site had electricity! I charged my phone, laptop, and camera -- finally. The night was extraordinary -- just the right temperature, clear night sky, and a suburb theatrical serenade of German crickets perfectly in unison with the crashing ocean waves.
On the morning of Tuesday, May 26, 2009, we got up at noon, had a small lunch, and took a superb, long over due, shower. At 3pm we picked up Dominik's friend (Michele). We went to the city center and walked along the boardwalk. It reminded me somewhat of New Jersey's boardwalks -- just much cleaner and somehow older. After, we went to the harbor area because we wanted to get some fresh fish to grill for dinner. Sadly the fish market closed just 30 minutes before we arrived, so we went for a short walk and then decided to have a fresh fishmeal at a harbor restaurant. We could tell something was brewing in the weather. The wind started to kick up and sky was darkening. We spent the rest of the day at the beach, playing in the sand, building castles and waiting in the water.
This brings me to where the blog post began. It started to rain. Dominik took Michele home and I stayed in the tent and began to write. When Dominik got back the rain started harder. As we were watching Hitch on my laptop, we noticed that water was starting to come in by the seams of the tent. Dominik came up with the idea to cover the seams with opened trash bags, plastic bags, and black duckedtape But, after a few more munities, it just was not helping -- the blankets and pillows were starting to get sopping wet. So, we took all the food crates out of the car, laid down the seats, and transferred the bedding to the back of the car and food to the tent. We then finished the movie on the laptop and slept in the dry car.
The next day, Wednesday, May 27, 2009, we got up at 1pm. The tent looked like a hurricane hit it. We could hear people laughing as they walked by the campsite. We got up and de-plasticed the tent, hung up the bedding on wire strung from tree to tree, and put the food back into the car and aired out the tent. Once the campsite was presentable again, we got ready and zipped over to the harbor fresh fish market again.
We arrived right as they were closing and they only have one type of fish left out, so we got 3 fillets for just a few Euros. The workers told us that there was another fresh fish market in the downtown that closed later. So we headed over there and got some shrimp kabobs, a beautiful salmon filet, and a whole cleaned fish. We then made a quick stop at a hardware store for a tarp because we knew it was going to rain again tonight. At 5pm we picked up Michele and went to the campground to grill. As the BBQ briquettes were heating up we placed the tarp over the tent -- perfect fit. We grilled from 6pm to midnight -- Michele took the last bus home around 10:30pm.
At about 1am on Thursday, May 28, 2009, Dominik and I went down to the beach, for the last time, with a bottle of wine, two wine glasses, blankets, and a flickering citronella candle. It was our last night and we wanted to make it special. We placed the blankets down and laid under the night sky, speckled with stars, drinking the wine and basking in the moment. Once it got cold we packed up from the beach and went back to the tent. Packing up for the night we put the extra food out in the forest -- we were visited by three "wild" domestic cats that loved our cooking. It was fun to watch them, we placed the food and then went about packing up, and when we went to check to food, it was gone.
In the night it got very windy and rainy, but when we got up at 10am the tent was dry, not a drop of rain on it -- perfect. In one hour we packed up the site into the car and left for Bonn at 11am. On the way out of the city we passed classic northern Germany thatched roofs; very traditional. After an 8-hour drive we arrived in Bonn at 7pm. In the last few miles Dominik and I talked about me flying back to the USA in the morning, he asked, "Why are you going back now?" I could not give him an answer. The Hawaii trip was canceled and my job hunting is postponed anyway, so after we arrived and unpacked the car I found out how much it would be to move my flight. With that fee, it would only cost me food if I stay longer with Dominik. So I went ahead and pushed my trip another 8 days. Here's to another adventure...