traveldiary.stracke.us

The weather in Upstate New York has been great for the last 2 weeks and we explored the Adirondack Mountains. On Sept.26th we drove with Carol and Peter to Saranac Lake and hiked around a lake at Paul Smiths Interpretive Center. The tree colors were beautiful and Gabi took lots of pictures. I gave her a two day break from hiking and yesterday we hiked the Cascade Pond Trail near Blue Mountain Lake.

Again sunny weather and a nice lunch at the pond. The last time we hiked this trail was in September 1986 ( 18 years ago ! ), when we carried Sonja (4) and made poor Carsten(6) walk this trail; no wonder he does not like hiking.
We did see a Black Bear, but only from the car as we left the trail area. He was really cute and was checking us out from about a 25 yard distance. I had turned off the engine and threw him Gabi’s apple to lure him a little closer for a better photoshot. Unfortunately at that moment a noisy car drove by and the bear got scared and ran into the woods. It still was the first Black Bear we have seen in the wild. (Maybe luring wasn’t such a good idea:roll:)

After having been in shock for a couple of weeks, it’s time to come back……and here I am. As many of you faithful readers know, Carsten gave us quite a scare, something I hope will never happen to any of you or to us again! Thank God, all is well with him and he is deciding which direction his life should take for the next 3 months, either go to a make-shift medical school here in the states or wait till January to continue his studies. He’ll let us know as soon as he knows!:wink:

Now to the history lesson. What kind of a teacher would I be without a lesson:???:
Every child, as it ages, wants to know where his/her roots lie……. Now after having seen Breslau, I was interested to see how my grandparents started living in one country, Poland, but ended up in another, Germany. The only way was to delve into some books and see how that happened. I knew bits and pieces from stories I had heard my whole life, but I wanted a concise explanation………………………….

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The weather has been beautiful since our return home, and on Sept.21st our legs decided it was time to put them in motion again and so we went biking. We found a former Delaware and Hudson rail track , which is now a bike trail. Starting point was the small village of West Pawlet, Vermont and after getting directions from a friendly local, we finally found the unmarked trailhead. The railroad had been built on a dam and it took us along a swift running brook through cowpastures and cornfields with nice views of the Green Mountains. It was a great ride and we did not meet a soul all day. No wonder , the trail has no signs. It was quite a contrast to Germany in that respect. Since many people in Germany bike as a method of transportation, as well as pleasure, the trails are naturally more crowded. For dinner we bought fresh corn at a farmstand and it turned out to be the best corn we ever had.
Today we put the bikes on the back of Carsten’s Nissan ( the only car we share right now) and rode on the Mohawk – Hudson Bikeway along the Mohawk River / Erie Canal from Rexford to Lock 8 and had lunch on the riverbank at Kiwanis Park in Rotterdam. We learned a lot about local history, saw the oldest house in Schenectady (from about 1735), and the former site of the American Locomotive Company, which, for more than 100 years , built ” the worlds best” steam locomotives right in our own backyard. Today we could only use the car for half a day ( Carsten working ) and did about 3 hours of biking. On the way back there were 2 cabin cruisers ( one from Ohio, the other from Connecticut ) next to us on the river and we raced them all the way back to Schenectady. Enough exercise for one day!

September 9th : We are driving from Dresden through the Czech Republic back to Prague and catch a flight to Cologne,Germany. The roads in the Czech Republic are not only much better than the ones in Poland, but also are more interesting. We see many young women standing alongside the highway in the bordertown of Teplice. It is 11 AM, but they are already offering their services. It appears to be a very poor area and it is educational to see how some people have to make a living. When driving here I really have to keep my eyes on the road :
the highway has 3 lanes and the middle lane is used for passing from either direction. The driver with the stronger nerves keeps passing, the one who blinks moves over. Sometimes neither one blinks and the trucks move into the emergency lanes, temporarily creating a 4- lane highway.
September 10th to 13th : We are in Düsseldorf , staying in my sister’s house. My sister and brother- in- law are retired and cruising with their sailboat off the coast of Sardinia. The lights and shutters in their house are on timers and while we were there, they would go on and off and open or close at irregular intervals. In Germany most houses have shutters ( Rolladen), in this case motorized, to keep burglars out. We did not need an alarm clock, since the shutter opening conveniently would wake us in the morning!
Talking about high tech : We took the new ICE train from Cologne to Frankfurt. It is running on a new track and it feels like flying at ground level. We were standing up taking pictures while travelling ( British with two l’s’ ) at speeds of up to 300 km/h (187 MPH) and did not feel any shaking. In comparison the take-off speed of a 747 is about 240km/h.
Nowadays you see many modern windmills with 3 huge blades not exactly beautifying the German landscape. They help to produce electricity from windpower and our German landlord in Nordfriesland told me, that private people own these windmills as an investment. Supposedly they start paying a dividend after 10 years.
There are very few payphones left in Germany. We asked in several towns for a pay phone location, but there were none to be found. Most Germans use their cell phones ( “handy” is a cellphone in German) and there is probably little demand for public phones.

It is Sept.8th and we are driving from Breslau,Poland to Dresden Germany on the Interstate E40. On the map it looks finished, marked as a promising blue double line, but reality confronts us with a teethshattering washboard. We are able to drive not any faster than 40 MPH and are happy to reach the German border. There is still a striking difference between the 2 countries and we are surrounded again by nice looking houses, clean towns, well built roads etc. Our satellite phone works again, but still no contact with Carsten in Grenada. Tonight we stay in Dresden in an Etap Hotel ( French budget hotel chain) for $40. Everything is computerized and you do not get a room key, but after paying for your room, you are given the code for the keypad lock on the door. The room is clean and the private bath is a wetcell with toilet and shower. No pictures on the walls, no phone or wake-up call, but we even have cable TV in the room. We slept fairly well, considering that we had no news from Carsten yet.

In The Restaurant : In Germany the man enters first and secures a table, since there is no hostess. It is customary to share a table with other people when a place fills up.
The tip is included in the bill and you only need to round up to the next Euro ( or 2 if you are generous). We had a meal in Prague for the equivalent of 8 Dollars and I gave the waitress about 1 Dollar as a tip, but first she asked me if I made a mistake and started to beam when she realized that I was serious.

When Driving : German drivers are very fast and hectic ! On the famous Autobahn you stick to the right lane and only use the left lane for passing. It is illegal to pass on the right and drivers follow that rule. When you see a car coming from behind cruising at 140 MPH or so, you are expected to move to the right lane ASAP! We did not see any police patrol on the highways in Germany,Czech Republic or Poland during a whole month of travel. There are frequent red light cameras installed at intersections and you get your picture with the ticket in the mail when you run a red light. They also have fixed radar traps that work the same way and no police car is chasing you for a speeding ticket. The Germans do it the more elegant and egalitarian way. Every speeder gets a ticket in the mail!
The mobile radar traps are announced on the traffic radio together with the traffic report every half hour. The car radios are programmed to give you automatically any new traffic alert and detour instructions to avoid tie-ups (Stau); even if you had the radio volume down it comes up by itself. In the cities are unmarked speedbumps in the residential areas which forces you to drive only 20 MPH, since you can not see the bumps from the distance.
In general Germany is too small for its number of cars and we saw double and triple parking on a Saturday in Duesseldorf. I had to brush up on my parallel parking skills
since every inch gets used and Gabi had to guide me from the curb so I would not scratch the rental car. ( The rental car companies check for every little scratch ! )
The ramps in the parking garages are also very tight and the walls aremarked with multiple proofs of drivers with poor spatial vision !

In The Supermarket : The shopping carts are chained together and you have to insert 1 Euro to get your cart. I think this is a great idea, because people return the carts to get their Euros back. The system was probably invented to prevent the cars in the parking lot from being damaged and Germans are very fussy about their cars
( aka ” the holy tin ” ). You have to bag the groceries yourself and Germans are very fast. We do not have the training and Gabi and I have been yelled at for being so slow and holding up the checkout line ! You have to bring your own bags or pay a fairly high price for a new plastic bag everytime you go shopping.
The ladies at the foodstore registers wear M.D.- like white labcoats !
P.S. Germany is the World Champion in baking and there is a huge selection of breads, rolls,baguettes, cakes and pastries. They all taste good and are not as sweet as American cakes. Many do not have preservatives and are baked fresh every day. I am getting hungry now, it is almost time for breakfast.

Restrooms in airports, trainstations, department stores, Autobahn rest areas, larger restaurants etc. are not free ! In Germany the restrooms are spotless and maintained by a full time attendant who expects a tip for the service. In some places you have to pay a nominal fee of 75 cents or so before you can enter, in other places you are expected to leave a tip on a plate strategically placed by the exit door. In Breslau,Poland an old lady was guarding the entrance of a restroom and demanding money, but Gabi and I had to flip the only coin we had, since only one of us could use the facility ! So be prepared when you travel and bring some soft toilet paper, if there is room in your suitcase. I remember Turkey where you use your left hand to clean yourself and it is an offense to shake anybodys left hand.

We pulled into a high-tech parking garage near the Duesseldorf train station and a metal fence closed the entrance behind us. My frugal wife complained about the high parking fee and, as the obeying husband that I am, ( and being on a budget)I drove right away to the exit. The metal fence at the exit opened and promptly closed again behind us, leaving us in front of another barrier which only opens after you insert your paid parking ticket. In Germany you usually obtain your parking ticket as you enter the garage, and pay at a machine inside the garage before you get in your car on your way out. It is all automatic without any personnel on the premises. Normally you can reenter the garage on foot ( if you forgot to pay your ticket) and find a parking fee machine, but this was a very secure garage ! I could not get in to pay and could not drive out, the curb was too high to drive over and there were no other cars entering or exiting, so that I could have walked in to pay. I even jumped up and down in front of the entrance gate, but I was not heavy enough to activate the gate mechanism. Images of us spending the night in the car in this not so safe neighborhood flashed through my mind. Now what?
I just got a little work-out and manually pushed the unwilling parking gate up just high enough to squeeze our VW out of there. I expected to see the blue lights of a German police car in my rearview mirror because of 2 Euros saved and a broken gate, but we escaped !

Ivan IV or The Terrible , 1530 to 1584, was the first to bear the title “Tsar” and was crowned in Moscow in 1547 at the age of seventeen!
He actually was a good ruler until his first wife died and he became gloomy and tyrannical. He created a special corps to uncover treason, resulting in seven years of terror. He married seven times and forced his ex-wives to become nuns. At one point he killed one of his own sons during a rage.
Why would anybody name a hurricane “Ivan” and expect anything good to come out of it? Maybe a little study of World History would help.
We were in the old Polish town Wroclaw on Tuesday, September 7th when we saw the news about Ivan destroying Grenada. Apparently 90 % of the homes were destroyed and there was no power, water or telephone communication with the island. The British had a Navy Ship there the next day and helped with emergency surgeries. We were told that all British medical students were evacuated by the British Navy. We had no information about Carsten! The next news were about looting and break down of Law and Order on Grenada. The University would not publish a list of all students that were accounted for after the storm! We finally called the U.S. State Department who took down information about Carsten and filed a Missing Person report with their man in Grenada. The University website Storm Forum was cluttered with rumors and false information and by now Gabi and I were going crazy imagining what could have happened to our son. We left Poland and drove to Germany to use our satellite phone. Still no word about Carsten after 4 days. At this point I had booked a flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Trinidad for Monday, September, 13th so we could get to Grenada to search for Carsten. He finally was evacuated by the British to Barbados on Sunday, September 12th and called us in Germany Sunday evening with the good news that he was unharmed. We were at this point in Moenchengladbach at my niece Birte’s house and I used her internet to obtain a ticket for Gabi and myself to fly home the next day to see Carsten in person. We had the (so far) worst experience of our lifetime and had to come home to convince ourselves that he was ok. Thanks to British Airways we were reunited Tuesday afternoon at home in Clifton Park.
By the way Gabi and Carsten are shopping right now for some clothing for him. He managed to rescue his laptop and his dive computer. He spent the night in his bathroom during the Hurricane and the roof was blown off. The next day he managed to walk to the medical school campus and started to volunteer in the University Clinic. The next 2 days he apparently helped to provide some medical care at the local hospital and will probably write about some of his experiences on his website.
Gabi and I are overjoyed to have him back unharmed and will stay home until October 3rd when we fly back to Germany and plan to pick up our journey on the island of Crete in Greece. We are missing the Octoberfest in Munich and our exploration of Sicily, Italy, but this is totally insignificant as long as our family is in one piece!!!
Writing unexpectedly from 42.85 Degrees N , 73.79 W (Clifton Park , NY)

P.S. Is the U.S. State Department is still looking for Carsten?

Today we’ve been on the streetcars and buses of Wroslow ( Breslau), Poland searching for the house of my grandparents and mother. It was an interesting experience, since we did not speak a word of Polish, and I mean not a word:!: Thank God the tourist info had a map that was labeled with the street names in Polish and German. Prior to WW2 this area of Poland was part of Germany. After the war, it was given to Poland, when Polish territories in the east were given to the Soviet Union. Wow what a speckled history:!: So does that make my background Polish or German? Definitely German because my grandpa refused to become Polish and was thrown out of the area and repatriated to western Germany. Thanks Opa,:grin: because otherwise I wouldn’t be around, since my Papa was from the western section of Germany.
We searched out 3 places where my grandparents had taken up residence. Two of the three were actually still there, even though Breslau was over 70% destructed in the war. One is now either a big 4 lane street or part of a gas station:shock: One of the two was really hidden because you had to walk through a house in order to get to an entire complex at the back of that house, that none in the world would have known was there, except of course my Mom, who told me about it. She was 12 when they had to leave Breslau. I felt like I was following the footsteps of my ancestors…pretty cool:cool:
Breslau itself is a very big city..about 650,000 inhabitants. The main square is beautiful with a lot of old European flair. Outside of that perimeter it still seems like either pre-war 40’s, if buildings are still standing or post war Soviet style blocks. Definitely a blast to the past:lol:

One super cool thing today.. the cathedral, the Pope’s home cathedral has an elevator to the top..:shock:

Our satellite phone won’t work here-it claims restricted area

Gabi in Breslau