All the current talk about the Russians and V. Putin got me thinking about my First European Vacation, circa 1964.  underlined because I already wrote a story with that title and promised more to come, which, in my usual fashion, did not happen.

I, and my two traveling companions, Marilyn and Barbara, found ourselves “stuck” in Copenhagen in the Absalom Hotel.  I had to put the hotel name in boldface because I can’t believe I remember the name of it.  I mention this because it reminds me of my mother’s memory.

When I traveled to Italy in 1997, my mother suggested three hotels in Rome where she and my dad had stayed.  I can’t believe she could remember those hotels!  I can’t remember what I had for breakfast, today.  Wait — I do remember.  It was avocado on toast with an egg.  I wouldn’t have told you if the case had been that I’d had a doughnut.

Back to the Absalom:  Our next destination was Berlin, but there was no way to get out of Copenhagen.  All trains heading to the German border were booked solid for two or three weeks.

Stuck in Copenhagen?  I know it doesn’t sound too bad, but we’d been there for about a week and our time wasn’t completely open.

I saw Barb and Marilyn huddling and wondered what they were cooking up.  They approached me, tentatively, and said they wondered what I thought about HITCHHIKING!  Me, hitchhiking?  My mother had warned me about the predators “out there,” just waiting to attack any young woman who accepted a ride with a stranger.

But I thought, “What could happen?  There are three of us.  This could be a great adventure.”

So, our friends, Bill, Tach, Willy and Chuck from Inglewood, California, whom we’d met on the SS France, took us to the edge of the city and left /abandoned us there.   Would we catch a ride?  We almost panicked, but within minutes we did have a ride.

Our first ride was a lovely man — looked to be in his fifties — who was the Head of Nurseries in Denmark.  Can you imagine a head nurseryman in the U.S.?  Denmark is a country with a population of only four million, and they were some of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet, so it made sense to us that they had a Head Nurseryman.  What is our version of Head Nurseryman?  Secretary of the Interior?  Homeland Security with flowers?

We told him we were from Ontario, California, and he said, excitedly, “Armstrong Nurseries!”  What a connection.  Armstrong Nurseries began in Ontario, and a part of the family still lived there.  We knew the exact location of their house!

He took us as far as he could, and we exited his car to find another ride.  We had to get to the border of East Germany.

Two or three rides later, we made it to the train station near the border.  So far, only one bad experience with a truck driver.  All I know is that Marilyn, who was sitting next to the driver, started to climb over us to jump out of the truck.  We got it.

The trains in Germany were operated by the Russians, and boy were those Russian soldiers scary looking.  Now, I’m sure our imaginations played a part in our perception since we were in the middle of the Cold War, but nevertheless.

Very large men were posted along the tracks — three and four of them walking up and down in awesome brown uniforms, trimmed in red, posted near small shacks that were checkpoints.

We stopped at many checkpoints along the way, but none of the big guys ever came on board.  Instead, at one of the first checkpoints, a normal-sized, female guard came on board and made her way to our seats.

She didn’t say anything, but we knew we had to present our “papers,” and so we began to rifle through our backpacks.  Soon she was in front of me, staring at me with cold, hard eyes.

Barbara and Marilyn quickly found their passports, but I could NOT find MINE  I went through the backpack again.  Barbara went through MY backpack; Marilyn went through my backpack.  We were starting to sweat.  All the while, the woman was staring at me — not talking at all and definitely not in any way trying to make me comfortable.  She had NO sense of humor, and mine was fleeting, fast.

Adding to our nervousness and fear was the fact that our friend, Bill, some weeks earlier had been taken off this same train to Berlin and questioned for six hours by the Russians — Russians  who did not speak English and could not tell him why he was being questioned, and he HAD his passport.*

Somehow my passport turned up.  I couldn’t tell you, today, where it was found, but I think it was that same, damned backpack that we had all looked through.

The woman seemed a little disappointed that she didn’t get to take me off the train and torture me for secret information.  I would have spilled the beans; not that I had any beans.  I would have made up something, feeling guilty that I had nothing.

When we arrived in West Berlin, we were part of a very small group on the train. The citizens of Berlin were striking the trains, it being the third anniversary of the erection of the Berlin Wall, and as I said, it was those pesky Russians who ran the trains.  Most Berliners weren’t fond of them.  I have to remember that it wasn’t even twenty years after WWII.  That’s kind of shocking for me to even write down.

Berlin was a happening place — plenty of exciting things to do, many, many nightclubs, but the most interesting thing to do was to cross into East Berlin at Checkpoint Charlie.  All these years later there was still plenty of devastation.  Department stores displayed coat hangers for sale in the window.

They ran a mirror under the bus carriage to see if anyone wanting their freedom or wanting to visit family was under the bus.

We saw people in the Eastern Sector coming to certain points to wave to their family and/or friends in the Western Sector.  Guards marched everywhere, and it wasn’t just a wall. I think that was the most shocking thing about it.  It was barbed wire, followed up by another brick wall, then a few more feet and another wall, and so on with armed guards in high towers.

They were still killing people that tried to cross what the Russians labeled “illegally.”

After a few days, a feeling of oppression overcame us, and we couldn’t wait to get out.

The Berliners were trapped.  We began to feel trapped too, so we left after about five days.

Three years later,I returned there with my husband when he was serving in the US Army in Germany .  He was required to wear his uniform to travel to the Eastern Sector.

I filmed my husband walking in his uniform along the wall when we realized I still had the lens cap on.  I re-filmed, but where is that film?

Berlin is a beautiful city now that the Russians are gone.

The End