Out of Paradise - Ch. 7 - Arbeit Macht Frei Pt. 1

Out of Paradise - Ch. 7 - Arbeit Macht Frei Pt. 1

Back to Amsterdam, I bid my two compatriot cohorts adios and start hitching my way south toward the nearest Alp. Not far out of Amsterdam, I get a lift with a middle aged couple on their way home to Scheveningen. They’re telling me a story about how Nazi infiltrators, during the Second World War, could be identified, no matter how fluent they may have been in the Dutch language, by their pronunciation of their town's name. They're also telling me about what a beautiful, quaint little fishing village it is and about this particular delicacy, famous in Scheveningen, of raw fish that they don't know the name of in English. They offer to treat me to a taste of their local delicacy, and since I'm never one to be denied a free lunch, as intrigued about the raw fish as I may have been, I take them up on their offer. Before too long, we're all sitting around a table in a small bistro in the beautiful, quaint little fishing port of Scheveningen, sipping glasses of local white wine eating raw herring. Herring - God, I love herring - my favorite - And this is the mysterious raw fish delicacy of Scheveningen that my benefactors don’t know the English name of. Ahhh, life doesn't get better than this.

After a beautiful brunch of raw herring and local white wine in the beautiful, quaint little fishing port of Scheveningen, my benevolent hosts most graciously drop me at the nearest junction heading south toward the nearest Alp. My next few rides over the next few days take me around through The Hague, past Rotterdam and Breda, into Belgium through Antwerp, Brussels and Liège, back into Germany through Koblenz, Frankfurt, Mannheim and onto Heidelberg.

Along the way, I’m dropped somewhere in the rural stretches of German fucking nowhere by a German farmer on his way home to his remote farm in the German hinterland somewhere this side of Koblenz. It’s late November. It’s evening. The sun is just setting behind the distant hills and it’s cold. My breath is clearly visible and I rub my hands together to keep them from freezing up. I don another sweater I retrieve from my pack, zip my jacket up to my chin and pull my collar up over my ears. Not a car in sight. Not a car, not a house, not a living soul for miles – and it’s starting to snow - fucking terrific - the first snowfall of the season. The only sign of life visible for as far as I can see is the black cloud of smoke trailing a coal driven locomotive off in the far distance. Fucking terrific.

The sun has long since set, it’s dark, the snow is getting heavier and beginning to accumulate around my feet. I stamp around in it for awhile and brush the flakes out of my hair and off my shoulders.  Haven’t seen a car for over an hour. Fucking terrific. I take refuge under a nearby bridge and ponder my dilemma. Here I am, sitting under a bridge somewhere in the rural stretches of German fucking nowhere – It’s dark, it’s late - Not a car, not a house, not a living soul in sight for miles – and it’s snowing - fucking terrific.

As I give up hope of finding any more secure accommodation for the night, under the circumstances, I begin unraveling my North Face sleeping bag and imagine the morning headlines reading, “Unidentified frozen corpse found petrified under a bridge somewhere in the rural stretches of German fucking nowhere in the German hinterland somewhere this side of Koblenz.”

Fucking terrific.

I brush away as much snow as I can off the frozen ground under the bridge, lay my North Face sleeping bag out in the clearing formed, make sure I’m wearing every stitch of clothing I possess and snuggle myself into my sleeping bag for the night. Damn, life can certainly get better than this. Never mind, it will. And, with that thought, I freeze myself to sleep.

The next morning, I brush off the half foot of snow which had fallen on me during the night and awaken to the sun creeping up over the distant hills. The once green and fertile farmland has been transformed overnight into a magical carpet of virgin white powder, glistening and sparkling in the early dawn like a rolling field of chiseled diamonds. The snow has stopped and a brilliant morning sun is already warming the frozen terrain. I stretch and yawn and welcome the warmth.

The fresh powder crinkles under foot as I repack my bag and make my way back onto the side of the road. I kick away enough snow to form a relatively clear spot to set my pack on, sit myself down on top of it and wait.

God, it’s beautiful out – quiet, serene, not a sound, not a creature stirring, not a breath of wind – an eerie stillness gripping the air – another cloud of black smoke drifts across the distant horizon trailing the coal driven locomotive on its return run. I wait.

Like a mirage, followed by a swirling mass of undulating sleet, a faint image appears in the distance. I stand. The image looms nearer. I raise my arm and ready my thumb. The swirling mass of undulating sleet is nearly upon me. It slows, comes to a stop on the bridge that served as my makeshift shelter for the night and I’m on my way to Koblenz.

From Koblenz I get a ride with an American G.I. on his way home to his base in Mannheim and from there onto Heidelberg. Now, Heidelberg is this romantic, medieval fortress nestled prominently on the banks of the Neckar River with a magnificent castle holding vigil over the environs and home to Germany's oldest university established in 1386.

I check into a central hostel and then out into the Heidelberg night. In a nearby pub I come across a band of German students attending the local university here and set out on another night of drunken depravity. We’re all becoming best of buddies, hoisting large mugs of Bitburger beer all around and singing German folk-songs when out comes the “Shoe” – a 5 liter tankard shaped, of all things, like a shoe (more like an oversized boot in the shape of Italy), filled with the local brew and begin passing it around. Now the object is to drink your fill before passing it on to the next imbiber, being careful not to leave enough brew for him to chug lest you be liable for the following round. The “Shoe” gets passed around the room a couple of times and eventually back to me with a good 500 mils still left. Now, here comes the tricky part. Do I take the smallest sip possible, pass it on and hope the guy to my right isn’t all that thirsty, or do I drain the contents and stick the guy to the left of me with the bill for the next round? I take a deep breath and amid roars of “Hoo haa, hoo haa,” coming from the gallery, drain the contents. The guy to my left orders another. The evening carries on as such, chugging shoe after shoe, all at no cost to me, until well past 10:00 pm and well past hostel curfew hours. The university students have classes the next day and must get back to their reality.

I stumble out into the Heidelberg night, bloated on Bitburger beer and onto the park promenade along the Neckar River. I settle myself down on a hard wooden park bench and wonder where the fuck I’m going to sleep for the night. Didn’t have to wonder too long before I was aroused the following morning by a German police officer advising me that it was “verboten” to sleep on the park benches. With my most humble of “Entschuldigungs”, I lift my swollen and hung-over head off the hard wooden park bench slats and go about locating the nearest coffee.

I make my way back to the hostel, collect my gear and head off in the general direction of the Matterhorn. On my way south toward Munich, I pass through the town of Dachau, the site of Heinrich Himmler's first concentration camp, and am compelled to pay homage to the unfathomable atrocities that took place there at the hands of my very own ancestors – apart from the Bohemian blood on my mother’s side, I’m half German on my father's. As I pass through the foreboding iron gate marked “ARBEIT MACHT FREI” - past the now silent and cold crematoriums that once spewed the charred remains of  tens of thousands of Jews and political prisoners and undesirables who endured the torture, the anguish, the suffering and ultimate death through starvation, disease and mass murder - genocide - through the stark, gray, barbed wire enclosed compounds housing the ghosts and shadows of the countless tortured souls of a world gone mad – visions of gaunt skeletal frames draped inanimately across crowded makeshift barracks haunt my consciousness, a morbid chill runs up my spine and an all consuming sullenness pervades my body - a deep, penetrating sensation of sickness, remorse, disgust, bewilderment - amazement of man's inhumanity toward man. I begin pondering our position at the top of the food chain and come to the realization that we, ourselves, are our own greatest nemeses, our own most vicious predators - ourselves and the smallest, most negligible micro-organisms - the viruses, germs and bacteria that spawn disease, plagues and epidemics. We have truly come full circle when the bottom of the food chain preys on the top.

I make my way on to Munich and the site of Mark Spitz’s miraculous feat of obtaining a record 7 gold medals only 2 months earlier and where 11 Israeli athletes had been senselessly slaughtered by Arab maniacs demonstrating, again, man's inhumanity toward man.

My second stop, after visiting the Olympic site, has to be the most celebrated shrine to beer known to man -  the Hofbrauhaus – a cavernous beer hall in the most German tradition where big buxomed belles brandishing bountiful barrels of Bavarian brew bring boisterous bellows from inebriated bafoons - Ahhh, life doesn’t get better than this.

I smell snow in the air and with growing anticipation, head south out of Munich toward visions of figure 8s carved on virgin slopes and the taste of fresh powder biting my cheek. Out of Munich, I happen to catch a ride that takes me southwest into the Bavarian town of Fusen and can’t help not visiting crazy King Ludwig's inspiration to Walt Disney first hand. Without a doubt, Neuschwanstein Castle in winter, cloaked in a blanket of freshly fallen snow, has got to be among the most awe inspiring sights I've ever seen - that and the Grand Canyon at dusk, the stars above Glenorchy on a clear night, a full moon over Taormina, sunset glistening off the Alhambra, Milford Sound soaked in a heavy rain, sunrise from the top of Mt. Fuji, the Great Wall in a snow flury, the afternoon sun gleaming through the branches of a Redwood forest – Damn, life doesn’t get better than this.

Out of Paradise - Ch. 7 - Arbeit Macht Frei Pt. 1

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