On the road again

Ok, so this is more of a short dash away, but nonetheless I find the process of recording these things quite productive. So here it is ....

It is not that I have been stationary since my last travels. I have, in the call of 'duty'(corporate language training), been flung on occasions for eisenhuettenstadt to erlangen, to huettenstadt, to erlangen and back again. This is in a way its own kind of travel and given that few would travel of their own free will to either of these places, one spends a good deal more time talking to the locals in say a 24 hour period that I have done talking to the locals in Krakow. Of course there is the fact that I can speak german, but not polish to reckon with here. Perhaps it has equipt me with enough of a knowledge of what it means to be mittel or osteuraeisch to see things on my journeys that other people do not. Who knows...

I took a train, apparently leaving Berlin Hauptbahnhof at 9.35. By the time we actually pulled out it was past ten. A perfect opportunity for germans to mecker, to complain, moan, dramatise, blame poland for all of their ills. This even despite the fact that we experienced no unscheduled delays on the polish side of the border. One pulls out of berlin, through villages in brandenburg mark spotted with windmills, motorways and allotments. One pulls into the strange interzone, that exists around the german polish border, intensified now that the schengen border has fallen. On the german side of the border at cottbus, I find bilingual signs in german and polish. We pass through the emptiness and, truth be told, grimness that exists just leading up to a border that was almost as impenetrable for many. And suddenly we have a new wagon, new announcers. We are over.

About ten minutes past the border, the police and border guards arrive in our carraige. Now that the border no longer officially exists, they cannot pasport check everyone. So the poles, mirroring their german counterparts on the other side, ask anyone who obviously, physically, looks non european, for identification. One guy, an african man does not have it, and after extensive pleading on his part he is 'escorted' off, with no money or ticket, at some impossibly rural station and is informed that he will have to find his own way back to Germany. God help him.

Pulling through western poland takes hours, and it is empty, rural, at times a disconcerting mix of stalinist and 19th century village architecture. Spending as much time as I do in Eisenhuettenstadt, right up at the border on the german side I am familiar with the 'end of the worldness' that proximity to that border brings. The endness breeds emptiness. For some reason it never occured to me that this strange emptiness would be mirrored on the other side. It is a gentle surprise. Otherwise the scenery is punctuated by a distinct lack of the windmills that follow you throughout eastern germany. There are wetlands, and harvesting farmers, empty and rundown stations, and forests without end. I spend my time contemplating this place, the stories I have heard from students, ethnic germans whose families upped and fled from this part of the world when the third reich collapsed. Students with strange slavic sounding names, that end in ska. I ruminate on the history that lies in these strange fields and farm houses.

I drink viciously strong coffee in a 1970s dining carraige. And wonder how the poles manage to stomach this stuff. And continue to ruminate.

Somewhere around Wroklaw civilisation appears to return. Late afternoon has also arrived, and so do shopping malls, cinemas, and strangely enough, branches of the store Rossmann. I am back into an industrial belt, cargo train after coal carrying cargo train pulls past me, on its way to eastern germany and god knows where else. Just before sunset I arrive in Krakow and am arrested by the prices of everything(at least double what you pay in Slubice, on the polish side of the germany/poland border), and by the way in which Krakow resembles Sienna.

More again soon ....