Saturday March 31, 2012
Saturday before Palm Sunday

I see Easter Eggs hanging from branches on shrubs in front of houses, and wonder whether they were allowed in the GDR. Dieter tells me they presented no problem, that the government viewed them not as Christian symbols, but of seasonal fruitfulness. On the other hand, if you were a Pastor, your children were baned from University. This led to many sons of pastors becoming woodworkers, in imitation of Christ. After reunification however, the Christian church did not grow: when church membership flourished and being Christian "Meant something" as Dieter says, it was a symbol of opposition to the Communist regime, and therein, perhaps lay its appeal to those disaffected with life in the GDR.

***

It is hailing in Wismar, a town on the Baltic. Its monumental Gothic cathedral, again, red brick, has flying buttresses to rival Notre Dame's. Not that I am going to tour it: I am more interested in getting hot tea and a brotchen, a ham sandwich on a bun in the convenience store opposite the train station.

I go into the station, which is no refuge from the cold, down and up the stairs to the platform where the one-thirty-three p.m. to Bad Kleinen will shortly pull in. I briefly put my cup on one of the small tables adjoining the kiosk, but the owner comes out to tell me that the stands are only for customers.

Wismar was a shipbuilding town, but now it is offshore drilling platforms that are built in the yards. Yesterday evening Dieter told me that he thinks all renewable and non-renewable sources of energy are dwindling; it seems inevitable that consumption will have to dwindle too, with lights being turned off earlier in the evening and houses kept less warm in cold months. (In this connection, no one I stay with, whether in Rome, Bologna, Frankfurt, Grosse Siemen or Zurich, has a clothes dryer, a sign of the new austerity.) When I ask what challenge he thinks China, with the opposite energy policies, presents to Germany, he says that in thirty years, China will implode economically under the weight of its environmental degradation.

I need to change trains in Bad Kleiden, a nondescript place next to a lake. Mecklenburg, unlike the midwest plain of the United States, has many lakes, adding further interest to the landscape. Bad Kleiden though, seems run down. The Deutsche Bahn ticket-taker reminds me of The Good Soldier Schweik, with his red cap pushed back on his head, watery blue eyes and burnt-out look. A taller, more lively man his age, chatters to him animatedly as he drinks a large bottle of strong beer. In Germany there is no "open container law" and drinking on public streets is common: Coming back from Stralsund yesterday, a slender, long-haired blond man with a black leather cowboy hat and dress to match, entered the first class car and sat down near me. No ticket taker came by, and he traveled unmolested a few stops further down the line. He was so unsteady on his feet that when the train doors opened, he fell into a heap on the platform. On all fours, he tried to get up, but folded again. Once more, holding his bottle so as not to spill the contents, he was in the midst of another attempt to rise, when the train moved noiselessly away.

***

In Lubeck, Bismarck and Wilhelm I, the first Kaiser of unified Germany, look opposite each other in the park near the Hauptbahnhof and on the way to the center city. My immediate impression of Lubeck, which is on the Elbe,is that it is a prosperous town of middle-class citizens, as it was in the Middle Ages. the historic buildings are again, all in red brick, and easily blend in with the small sotrees by the old Mayors residence.

I am supposed to stay here until 7:04 p.m., then return to Kropelin, where Dieter will pick me up at 9:21 p.m. But I am suffering intensely from the cold, which has been unrelenting since yesterday in Stralsund. I am able to pay a visit to the beautiful church of Saint Mary, mother of Jesus, saying a prayer and wondering whether I should not simply take shelter from the elements in the church. But it is not that much warmer inside the church than outside, andI am starting to fantasize about going to a hammam. Recognizing this means I have reached the limits of my physical endurance, I stalk back to the train station and see when the next train to Bad Doberan leaves. I have just missed the 4:04 p.m, so I set myself down with a cup of hot black tea with milk on the lounge seating of the station's MacDonald's. I am the better for the hot drink and watch the clock until it is time to walk down the station stairs to the track for the Bad Kleinen train.

Lubeck's station is clean, new and a classic European train station. When the train arrives a bit early, I happily go to the first class compartment. I now appreciate, having been obliged, due to my status as "over twenty-five" having a first class Eurail pass.

I find the car and see the empty styrofoam cup I left behind when I travelled to Lubeck. I sit in the seat opposite, so as to have the view moving forward, and contemplate the emerald green land, and now less threatening sky. Dieter plans to meet me in Kropelin at nine twenty five p.m., but I hope to take a taxi to Grosse Siemen, arriving two hours earlier, so I can organize my departure for Hamburg.

Unfortunately,, by the time I reach Bad Doberan, I am overcome, and faint as I leave the train. A group of young people circle me and seat me on a bench in the cold. They call the Emergeny Medical Service, which arrives promptly, staffed by two energetic men who take me inside the ambulance to test my blood pressure and take my temperature. After it is established that I am OK, they call a taxi to Gross Siemen for me. The driver is a nice young man, who makes sure I sit in the front, so I can have the benefit of the heated seats. I arrive at Gross Siemen safely, and after a hot bath, collapse in bed.