Goodbye to That or the Other Thing I Won't Miss

Saturday we fly home (sort of) to the U.S. After fifteeen months in Berlin & Vienna, we've learned to love a lot of things. Eve has gotten used to seeing horse drawn carriages galloping by periodically. I now enjoy the rhythm of shopping each day for food.

And then there's the things we don't love. Hate to finish on a sour note, but I've got one last thing to get off my chest: the mind-boggling absence of humanity among service personnel.

I departed Berlin on one of the first trains to leave the newly built main station. The fine folks at Deutsche Bahn provided me with a good sense of closure.

The brand new luggage carts were too small for my four large suitcases, portable crib, computer, and bike seat, but I rolled along anyway into the gleaming, eerily clean station. I followed what I thought were the signs to track 2 but ended up at a small, sad looking elevator that didn't seem right. I asked the uniformed personell in the office nearby. No, the man said, that elevator goes to the parking garage. Ok. But the signs say there is an elevator to tracks 1-2 right over here. Well, he said, as if he didn’t notice the piles of suitcases in danger of tumbling, go to the main entrance to the station and there is an information desk (i.e., up one floor and a 5 minute walk back through the station).

I give him my best “are you insane?!” expression and moved on to look for the right elevator. 10 minutes later I was back in front of his office. All the other signs for tracks 1-2 led to escalators or stairs. The correct elevator had to be here somwhere in the vicinity of the parking office. Suddenly I noticed a small, non-descript elevator with no sign on it. It was approximately 4 feet from the parking office.

My old friend and his colleague were now standing talking with a group of travelers in front of the elevator.

<> I asked the colleague, does this elevator go to track 2? “Keine Ahnung,” she said matter-of-factly. “No idea.”

How naïve of me to think -- after one year of living in Germany -- that someone wearing the uniform of the German railroad might be curious about whether the elevator next to his or her office carries passengers to the tracks. How naive of me to think that he/she might feel some vague rumbling from deep down in the bureaucratic subconscious of an obligation - moral, spiritual, legal - to help a person that some cultures call "customer." And what about empathy? Mitleid, Mitgefuehl, Emphatie - the Germans have an impressive number of words for a sensibility that they are so adept at surpressing.

I know that Americans' cheery, sacharine manner can be off-putting. I know that there is a certain amount of employer domination and oppression that goes into making American workers so smiley and ready to help. Ok! But still......

On the train.

Fellow passangers were great. An American student helps me get one of my massive pieces up on the rack. When I return he’s gone. (Probably in dread of the possibility that I would need his help again.) I started to struggle with the next bag, and the woman in front of my seat offers to help. She’s a strapping gal, but the last ounce of chivalry and sense of embarassment as 20 passengers look on, is getting the better of me. No, I start to say, and then suddenly, overwhelmed by visions of a 9-hour train trip chomping on tylenol, I give honesty a try.

Obervogelsang! Never heard of it before, but it's extraordinarily beautiful. Right near the Czech border. Bike paths along the river. Horses, sheep. Enclosed in a valley. Everything impossibly green.

Wehlen is the first town in a while. Looks like a spa.

South of there, still along the river. Striking rock formations jutting up from the river. Kayakers on the water. Sunning bridges. Outcrops of rock with climbers on them.

A beach along the river, but with sheep instead of people lounging, foraging, enjoying the scene.

Another town. Bikers, ut not too many. Intriguing roads, paths leading up into the hills. Koenigstein.

A stop in Bad Schandau.

And then eventually Vienna.

Vienna is a good place to finish up with the theme of congenital unfriendliness. Which story to choose? My favorite is when we were in the supermarket and the clerk whirled our wine bottle past the reader a little too fast. The bottle rolled off the edge of the counter and smashed on the floor, just in front of my two year old, sitting in her stroller.

No shards hit Eve, just a little bit of white wine, but of course Nicole & I freaked and we spent five minutes fussily examining Eve for any damage. The incredible thing is that the woman behind the counter, though embarassed and eager to find us another bottle of the same wine, never said anything in the way of "sorry" or "is your baby alright?" or "gosh, you must have had a bit of a fright." She just put the new bottle of wine on the counter, collected my cash, and said goodbye.

Extreme, but not an anomaly. There is something emotionally catatonic about the entire culture. They live in a beautiful country, with great social benefits, reasonable politics, general prosperity, good health. Am I missing something? Would it cause a crisis in national identity to smile once in a while to a stranger, to connect? I dunno. Funny how American I feel right now.

I guess I'm ready for the Midwest.