Strange that I should posting this on Nov 9 as we just heard on the news that this is the anniversary (Nov 9, 1989) of the taking down of the wall in Berlin. So 11/9 seems to have a significance...and of course, 9/11. Some have speculated that Osama meant 9/11 to remind people of the 11/9 date of the Berlin wall, only there is always this confusion between Europe and North America on whether the day or month comes first. I still get confused about it. Anyway, here’s what I wrote in 1991.
Passport Control (Part 1)
An old passport of mine is stamped about 8 or 9 times from a country I have never set foot in. In 1976 we had only a transit visa to pass through East Germany by train to our destination in Poland. I do not have any stamp in this passport from Spain although we spent about 10 days in this country in 1972. We entered Spain from Biarritz in the south of France on the Atlantic coast. The Spanish border officials were enjoying lunch. The procedure was to slow down and wave your passports out the window. They nodded and raised their wine glasses to us. It was a warm invitation to enjoy their country and we encountered many such warm invitations during our stay.
On our way to Burgos we stopped to picnic in the countryside and were soon joined by four workmen doing some kind of road construction. Neither Jim nor I spoke any Spanish at that time but we did have a Spanish-English dictionary and a lot of words in French are similar so we communicated reasonably well for a couple of hours. I don’t remember what was said but we all laughed a lot. That could be from the wine they shared with us. They taught us how to drink properly from a wine skein. Our attempts provided quite a bit of laughter. After a while I felt I had begun to speak Spanish quite well; however, Jim informed me I was just slurring my words in English. A few hours later I became rather ill. I attributed it to the tuna from Senegal we had eaten at lunch. Jim attributed it to the vast quantity of wine I had consumed showing off my skills at drinking from a skein.
Some countries do not invite one so warmly. Taking the Orient Express route to Poland from Paris, one had to enter East Germany, then leave East Germany, then enter West Berlin, then leave West Berlin to enter East Berlin and East Germany again. A part of ancient history now. Intimidation seemed to be the name of the game as our passports were verified numerous times. We went through Berlin in the middle of the night and were rudely awakened by “passport control” shining flashlights in our eyes. Scrutinizing our real faces and the representations on the pasports many times.
We began to get nervous as we had false information on our visas. Glancing out the window to see guards with machine guns didn’t provide much encouragement. The false information seemed so harmless when we were in Nice at the apartment of the representative of the Polish government that arranged for the visas. We were heady from the wine, the sun, the people...the myriad of sensations that make up the south of France.
Our friend was a professeur of French at the University of Katowice and had invited us to spend a week with his family in Poland. We had met at a summer course in Cannes and had enjoyed each other’s company so much we cancelled our plans to go to Italy to take advantage of this opportunity.
Our friend had convinced us to claim we were “family” so that we only needed to exchange $2.00 a day at the official exchange rate, otherwise we would need to exchange $10.00 a day. This would allow us to exchange more money on the blackmarket, which meant three to four times the official exchange rate. He patiently explained the system in Poland. Basically, this meant that the system didn’t work so everything had to be done on the sly...on the blackmarket, the unofficial way. It was an accepted fact. For example, to buy a car you had to have the price in full then wait three to four years. Except if you could produce money from the West, then you got it immediately. This worked for most things.
We expressed concerns about ending up in the Polish equivalent of Siberia. He assured us Polish officials “s’enfichaient litteralement”...i.e. “no one gived a damn”. He forgot to mention about East German officials who really seemed to be caring who went through their country.
The next morning we were still in East Germany and the train stopped inexplicably for over two hours. Our compartment companions assured us this was quite normal. At least, that was the message we picked up. Our companions who had begun the 32 hour journey with us were Polish and were returning home. We didn’t speak Polish and they didn’t speak either French or English but we felt like long time friends when we parted. We spoke French and they spoke Polish. After a while we figured we might as well speak English since the actual words weren’t being understood anyway. It was surprising how much was understood.
(end of Part 1)
Jim rather pathetically drinking from a wine skein...our new found Spanish friend looking on rather disdainfully. Unfortunately no photo has survived of my excellent technique.
I did reflect in my last post on how I was rather amazed we were so content in these small apartments in 1976. I now remember our first trip in 1972 when we actually slept in the back of this Renault 5 with our feet hanging out resting on camp stools and a shower curtain draped over to keep the dew off. This was when we couldn't find a hotel for $3 a night or less.
