Four Weeks, Four Countries, Ilka Cohen [manga ereader .TXT] 📗

Europe called early this year – still in May. My son Marcus even had to miss the last three days of school, which he accepted with less joy than one might expect from an 11-year-old school kid. The reason: It ruined his perfect attendance record reaching back to 3rd grade. Yes, despite all our traveling around we had always managed to have him in school somehow. Well, I think he got over it eventually.
The reason for the early start was financial – airfare increased the next day. And so May 26th saw us leaving for San Francisco airport to board a plane to Düsseldorf. The day literally began with a bang: A large, rain-soaked oak branch had broken off in the wind and hit the roof of our house, leaving a visible dent and shaking us all awake. Time to leave then.
In San Francisco we saw Air Force One take off to the skies. President Obama had visited for a speech at a solar panel plant. We paid for the privileged sighting with an air traffic jam at SFX as the air space had been closed for the president’s security. Our plane, too, left late, but it was a quiet flight and we almost made up the lost time. As to our first time flying Air Berlin, well, the leg room seemed even less. Who knows perhaps we are still growing, and not just sideways.
We stumbled out of the plane and right into the ICE train to take Aaron and the boys to Leipzig and me to Magdeburg. Only to realize that Marcus had left his little backpack next to the railway information counter. Containing all the books he wanted to read over the next weeks, his indispensable joke calendar and Lux, the stuffed toy lynx traveling with us for the last five years. I jumped off at the next stop, Düsseldorf’s main station, and took a local train back to the airport. Alas, too late, the backpack was gone and no time to try Lost & Found if we did not want to miss the next ICE train also. So Lux and the bag stayed behind but, to give a happy ending away, were retrieved on the eve of our return flight from Lost & Found. Marcus found other things to read in the meantime (Richard Hawkins, Herodot no less) but if Lux should wonder what she missed (and ever learns to read), here is an account of our European summer month.

The family’s ways separated in Magdeburg. While Aaron and the boys rolled on to Leipzig, I had relatives to visit and my 30-year high-school class reunion to attend. I arrived tired from jet lag and train delays and the task of pulling my Chinese-made bag with a very short handle over the cobblestones of Biederitz, where I was staying with our friend Thomas. Dinner at a Greek restaurant and news that the apartment in Leipzig looked fine cheered me up.
I spent the next day visiting my mom in the nursing home, dad at the cemetery, and my cousin and her family at home. And the evening in “Moll’s Laden”, the same inviting pub where the last class reunion ended five years ago at dawn. Olaf, one of my former classmates, plays in a band. Which is at the moment almost defunct but he had managed to organize a gig for the night. Too bad only one other school friend made it. I guess partying two days in a row isn't everybody's thing anymore now. O well, it was a fun night nevertheless. I had a song dedicated to me and danced and talked to a mildly crazy old Kazakh woman while waiting for the night bus to Biederitz. Who wanted to go to Ulm but seemed to have no idea where to find it. Coming from Potsdam near Berlin, she had been turned around at the Polish border – entirely the wrong direction - and somehow ended up in Magdeburg for the night. With admirable fatalism she decided that the next morning might bring better insights and went to sleep right there at the station.

Then followed the big reunion day. Which I had organized to a good part, so I was happy that 16 of the still alive 24 showed up. Before, I had visited my mom once more. This time with an outing in her big wheelchair since the weather had improved. She enjoyed it a lot, was talkative and high-spirited – only to ask me at the end who I was. O well, it was a happy morning for her even though it will have slipped through the sieve of her memory in a day.
There was time left till the get-together, not much to do, which inevitably led to some shopping. Sensible things, though – leggings in case the evening would get too cold and a new carry-on bag with 4 wheels and a very long and smoothly extracting handle. Yeah, traveling in style.
The afternoon’s program started with a guided city tour by Ingo. OK, I am in Magdeburg often enough and just went to have more time to spend with old friends. But Ingo knows a lot about Magdeburg’s churches and city history, so I did learn some new facts. For instance, I had never realized that the romantic half-buried ruins I liked to explore as young teen were remains from the city’s time as Prussian fortress. From the small group of five who cared (or had time), we soon expanded to the full round at the “Petriförder” restaurant, located at the Elbe river.
Class reunions are only interesting for insiders – and not even that is always true. So all I want to say is that it was a long – till 3 a.m. – and surprisingly warm and heart-felt meeting. With deeper insights into the live of the others than the last one had provided, many hugs and kisses in the end, and vague promises not to wait five years again. Ah nostalgia – must be a sign that we have entered middle age. Where has the cynicism of our youth gone?

I spent a few morning hours as guest at Ines’ apartment, even getting some sleep, but rising very disciplined at 8 a.m. to catch a late-morning train to Leipzig. When I arrived at the apartment past noon, everybody was still asleep. So much for discipline. There was work to be done for the rest of the day – apartment cleaning and laundry and repacking to get ready to leave again for Prague the very next morning. Not much time to get a feel for Leipzig. But I don't need much time – I felt at home in my old hometown and glad to be back almost immediately, a sentiment helped by a visit from Conny, my oldest childhood friend, in the evening.

And off we were again, to Golden Prague, favored destination of many Americans over the last decade. My excitement was restrained – I have been there, done that since I was 9. Still, as with all great old cities, there is always enough new to discover or just its atmosphere to draw you in. Aaron had found us a very cheap way to get four people to Prague for no more than $50: Traveling on the Bohemia-Saxony ticket and a local Czech train for the last leg. The only catch is that, like with other regional tickets, one is only allowed to use the slower regional trains. So our journey to Prague took four trains with switches in Dresden, Bad Schandau, Dečin and Usti nad Labem. Most curious was the train between Bad Schandau and Dečin, the smallest I have ever traveled in. It was just a single, diesel-powered wagon, looking much more like a bus than a train except that it ran on train tracks, of course. We had about an hour to spend in Dečin and used it to get Czech crowns and stroll around the small but well-kempt downtown. Once we were in Prague, it took two more metros and a tram to Vysehrad where we located our apartment at the "Emma" hostel easily enough. Quite a good deal - 40 Euros a night bought us a complete apartment with bedroom, large kitchen/dining room combination, shower room and toilet, furnished with the international uniform of cheap vacation apartments – bright and modern IKEA furniture. Vačlav, our friendly landlord, left us with keys, maps and recommendations to settle in. We followed one of his recommendations for dinner later on, after walking around the pleasant late 19th century neighborhood, the “Přavek”, a stone-age themed restaurant made to look like a cave and ornamented with fake mammoth teeth. Fortunately, the food was much more up-to-date, and if it was leaning towards big meat portions, well, that’s pretty typical for Czech cuisine anyway. They served the same beer, “Granat”, then in the Magdeburg “Petriförder” restaurant, small world of Central Europe. Aaron and I concluded the evening with a very long walk. Up to the Vysehrad metro station on the actual “hrad” (mountain, hill) that the neighborhood is named after with great views, across a long highly raised bridge, all the way to Wenceslas Square, Charles Bridge and back along the river. Which was still the Elbe, just like in Magdeburg. Tourists were crammed into the old town but mostly absent everywhere else. The Prague castle shone in the night, the river glowed with reflections. New for me was the Gehry House, also known as the Dancing House, a 1996, very organic and fluid building people either love or hate. I approve of it.

A new morning, a new month. June 1, International Children’s Day. A calendar mark unknown to Marcus but still observed in the Czech Republic. At least there was a party in downtown with a very colorful clown.
For Aaron, the first full day in Prague meant making his way to the National Archive and starting on his research. I accompanied him on his way to the metro and then walked to downtown by myself, admired the community house – with Alfons Muchta decorations - and Powder Tower at