VANCOUV-ER à GER-MANY  à PO-LAND via moto

The Test Run…

April-May 2006

Crossing the border from Ger-many to Po-land on a 1200cc German BMW motorcycle equipped with German plates and German logos feels a little strange at the best of times when you consider the implications. The fact that it was BMW 1200cc motorcycles that were among the myriad of bikes which couriered messages to the Polish front 65 years ago from Hitler’s bunker in Ber-lin, to his freezing troops in the East somehow leaves me dumbfounded. And here I am, a Canadian, crossing the same border on a rather updated version of a BMW that still uses the same style boxer engine as was used since this bikes’ beginnings. My navy blue passport firmly gripped between my upper and bottom front teeth, prohibited me from releasing my customary smile to break some of the uncomfortable border tension that exists at any border crossing these days.

I’m on a bike. That means I need two hands to control the machine…one on the clutch, the other on the gas for those of you that don’t ride the two wheeled machines. So no smile, no hands and a document in mouth…never mind the fact that my license and the bike’s papers had already been scanned once earlier that day by an ever so diligent Ber-lin’ officer who caught me doing an illegal left hand turn not too far from Ber-lin’s repugnant—and to some (including myself thanx to its new world cup soccer ball design) beautiful—TV tower built back in the hay days of the Soviet era.

It was only a few hours earlier that I was stuttering to the officer as the autobahn enables faster than normal speeds to reach far away borders that connect the ancient lands of the Habsburgs and Bohemians with those of the Eastern most part of the Holy Roman Empire. How I talked my way out of that ticket I will leave to divine providence, which will have to catch up with me some day, based on the sheer number of times it has bailed me out of sticky situations. Not only was I not carrying my insurance papers with me, a mortal sin in Ger-many’ worthy of seemingly the death penalty, but also, I couldn’t even find my license. You don’t have to flex your imagination that far to picture the ridiculousness of this scene. Here I am, an overdressed English lad (as my UK license is the only thing valid I can ride on here) driving a rather large bike, which in Ger-many takes years to acquire a license to drive, with no ownership papers and no license and completely unable to communicate with the stern officer. Such an unfortunate reality can place a foreigner in a jail cell for a few hours at least as it is illegal to even walk around anywhere in €urope without your passport. Usually the least you can expect is a hefty fine and the impoundment of your vehicle when you finally get through the nightmare of explaining your identity to a officer who speaks broken English.

I had actually just misplaced my UK’ license and was not prompt enough in finding it for the likes of this rather balding, middle-aged slightly overweight “polezie” man. His bulging eyes, like those of a bug or a Shit-zu were brown and glossy and anything but sociable. He stared down at me rather indignantly through his 4mm thick glasses, as Germans are an uncharacteristically tall people, just to make me fully aware of my foolishness for thinking I was still in Cana-da. After many pathetic pleas in English and German he finally felt sorry enough for me that I knew this wasn’t going to end too too badly. He started to hint at letting me off as I clearly fell under the retarded tourist category of the criminal code and not the Gone in 60 seconds (a movie about car thieves) type that they have such a problem with throughout Ber-lin’.

Organized crime from the Eastern newly admitted EU countries has been a thorn in the Commission’s side. Before letting me go though, he felt it necessary to put a little German fear of the law down my spine so he began making an unmistakable gesture. There is a certain action that is meant to send shivers through the skin of the foreigner, which involves the officer crossing his two arms together in a rather awkward way at the wrists. It is rather humorous to watch from a foreigners point of view but it is the universal sign for cuffs in Ger-many’ and “you’re going to prison”. I thought he ripped it off from a back street boys move though.

I had to quickly fumble my way through trying to remember the name of the owner of the bike, my new German friend Sven, whose last name I could not remember for the life of me, and even if I could, I wouldn’t have been able to pronounce. But alas after much heart pounding and garbled speech, I finally found my UK license tucked away in a back pocket, and a scrap piece of paper with it that had Sven’s name and address on it. He punched in the information and, thankfully, it all checked out. Such were the foreboding circumstances that surrounded the beginnings of my little motorcycle odyssey. He let me go with some stern words in German and insisted that I bid him farewell in the customary “choues” bidding and not the North American “good bye” fashion…Only this would appease him!

But getting back to the border guards, they usually see a lot of bikes come through from Ger-many’ but not so much the German bikes that come with Canadian tourists riding them not registered in their name. They were rightly suspicious as my 21 year old clean shaven face didn’t exactly give off the appearance that everything is as it should be. “your friend…he leant you his brand new motorcycle”… clearly they were confused, but as my friend Svitozar might remind me, they were Polish. I resent this as there might be some Polish influence somewhere in my grab bag blood line. Once again, luckily, the language barrier saved my hide from tanning and he let me off as there weren’t too many more English words we had in common. And there I was, in another country…beautiful long-mistreated land of the Poles.

When you cross over from one European Union country to the next you always kind of expect the next one to be just as wealthy and Westernized as the one from which you are crossing over from. This is how it is anywhere in the West. As for Po.land though, well, Po-land’…I think…has had a tough time recovering from a few setbacks. Take for instance their First World War defeat; it was devastation for which they had no recourse. The Second World War only added insult to injury as they were trying to fight German tanks with cavalry on one side and Stalin’s Red Army with poorly equipped foot soldiers on the other. They were blind sided on two sides and were pitilessly massacred by both the German and Russian soldiers. This is all to say…that the roads in Po-land’ can be a little less smooth than those of the famous German Autobahn as the money still does not flow as easily through this country as it does in Ger-many. It is such a sad fact that those who are geographically unfortunately located can suffer the most under the bonds of war and are often the nations which take longest to recover. The Soviet era was no step in the right direction and it has only been since the 90’s that the Polish economy has started to recover, 40 years after its pillaging.

I crossed over in the North Western Part of the German border and came in to Po-land’ from their North Eastern region. The destination was a large Port town known as G-Dansk’ and the fact that it doesn’t read very well phonetically should also partly explain the reason why I didn’t make it there that night. Speaking the Slavic languages is not the easiest part of a foreigner’s journey through these countries. But that’s another story for which this small entry has no time. Let me first try and give you a mental picture of Po-land… Imagine a futuristic 21^st century world whose city planners for the last 60 years have been Lego designers. You are correct if you are imagining the remnants of Soviet projects whose long and thin rectangular cement apartments jet up indiscriminately here and there in urban sprawls that were set up to feed the Soviet machine back in Moscow. Some of the fancier Lego blocked pre-fabricated buildings may even have colored bricks added to them as they were to house Communist party nomenclature officials. These are found in the larger cities but not so much in the neglected smaller cities of the North. Thank the powers that be that these city planners did not spend too much time in the rural parts of the country side. Here you will find an entirely different country, separate and disconnected from that of the former industrial cities. Here you find farms and farmers living in what seems to be some earlier more innocent part of the 20^th century. I had to purposely get very lost to find these places and stay lost to enjoy them. Only a motorcycle with some off road capabilities can even get to them. I am certain that the residents’ of these places prefer it this way.

As I slowed the bike down at one ever slight bend in the road, to take a picture of some swans swimming in a lake, I found myself the object of some intense curiosity. A young girl, perhaps 18 or 19 years of age, was hunched over less than ten feet away from me behind a fence. I know I know…give me a break…maybe it wasn’t all that intense! She was weeding, being careful to keep her gaze down at the weeds and not upwards at the space machine. She was wearing a long dirty dress and had her hair tied back in a scarf as is the customary fashion for many women in the rural Polish countryside. It was a strange couple of minutes of exchanging eye contact that made me want to figure out what was actually going on. Here she was, too shy to say hi, yet curious enough to want to break out of her conventional reluctance to at least smile at a stranger. I was trying to get a photo of the lake but couldn’t find the right position for the camera to take the shot. Every time I turned around to reposition myself, without fail, I would always catch her eyes, which would quickly look back down almost as though she was ashamed and in trouble for having been caught staring. It was as if there was rural etiquette and propriety law that she was clearly overstepping and I wasn’t sure why. I thought there had to be something else going on in this encounter and decided to make a full three sixty turn to look at the girls small house to see if someone else was watching her. Sure enough, leaning on the corner of the far side of the house, there was what had to be her father. He had the “I’ll break your neck if you so much as say hi to my daughter” kind of look that I have found many rural country side fathers to possess even in far away Cana-da. He was tall and lanky and had an extremely thick five o’clock shadow with some sort of long stem protruding out of his mouth; it was a weird looking pipe. His arms were folded as were his legs, glaring at me when they weren’t staring at his daughter, who was continually glancing back at her father to see when she would be able to sneak another peek at the stranger and his strange machine. I wish I were exaggerating but this was a pretty far out and removed place from anything like stores or proper roads.

Clearly I was not a welcome guest for dinner as the sun had just set and it was getting dark. You have to remember that I am decked out in such a suit of armour so as to give anybody the impression now days that I am a participant in a 21^st century jousting match. Not to mention the horse I am riding is a breed or model never before seen or released until this year. It is loud, shiny, and huge! People stare to the point where it gets uncomfortable, as though you are the “lucky” one to come from the wealthy west and you want to rub it in. I am predicting far worse receptions when I arrive in the some of the countries I will be traveling to.

Anyways, after I was certain there would be no invitations for tea or small talk with either the Dad or his daughter, I decided it was time to get back on my horse and find a place to sleep that night. Just before I pulled my helmet down over my face though, I flashed a quick smile at the girl who returned it just as hastily, slightly blushing. I turned the bike around and saw her Dad walking towards his daughter. Off I sped but I only hope I wasn’t the cause of her having to deal with a stern lecture from her father that night. Heaven help the beautiful Polish countryside.

Another incredible feature of these back country side roads are their evergreens which line and shade them. They are trees that must be close to eighty or a hundred years old. I’ve left a picture here to give you an idea but it is really something to see in the flesh. I don’t know by what decree some king way back in the early 20^th century must have made but all roads in the countryside seem to be lined with these old trees; they are such a site to behold.

I finally arrived in Utska a small port town on the black sea about an hour from the main port town G-Dansk. I met Artur, the young owner of a hotel built in 1789. It still has 300 year old furniture to line its halls and rooms. He was the kindest most generous guy who brought me straight away to the best fish stop in town. Here they have been smoking fish for hundreds of years using the same methods and recipes as have their grandfathers ten generations back. The fish melts in your mouth like freshly cut butter melting over hot carrots. Here, in Utska, town population of over 5000 and home to the famous Otto Von Bismarck’s summer cottage, the biggest news event of the day involved a kite surfer getting stuck out in the sea on his Kite board. He somehow managed to call the port lookout from a cell phone that miraculously still worked a mile out from sea, (how do you know you are only a stone throw away from one of the biggest cell phone distributors in the world: Finland). The dramatic rescue involved a fishing vessel not usually equipped for rescuing kite surfers having to heroically sail out one mile to sea, otherwise not scheduled to do so, to save the young man and his kite board. It was an event to talk of for weeks. Weeks I do not have unfortunately so off I'll have to be to Scandanavia for now...

Comments

[Tyson Sadler]

Wait for me bro. I'll be in Europe soon. http://www.myspace.com/tysonsadler

[Brian Cucek]

Sounds like a lot of fun over there in Europe. When you go to the middle east, be on the look out for Bin Laden. Theres a huge bounty on his head.

If you can find him and collect!

[Rudy Gardinetti]

Matty, I am quite jealous, I wish I was there having the same experiences but I love to live them vicariously through you. By the way, I would have never gotten into the same mess with der Polizei :)