My plan to follow my mother’s footsteps was that we’d go from Bremen and find the village to which my mother was evacuated during the war.
When I say village, I’m being generous. It was, and is, just a few houses and a farm. In the middle of nowhere. Just below nowhereville.
I had hoped to hire a bike and ride to the “village”. I picked a small town that was closest to the “village”, easy to get to by train and had decent accommodation and a range of restaurants. I figure if there’s a few places to eat it can’t be too small and we won’t go hungry.
Well, epic fail.
In terms of following footsteps, not in terms of not going hungry.
Everyone has bikes. There are bikes piled up everywhere. Bikes zip around everywhere. Garages are full of bikes. But no one hires them. Probably no market as everyone has one or two. So no riding along the flat and safe bike tracks. No zipping down to the “village”. And it just too far to walk.
We caught the train to the nowheresville that the village is an offshoot of. Turns out that particular village is over 3 kilometres from the train station. And there was nothing at the station. It only had one platform as there is only one track!
And then I realised my brain went all a-muddle.
My mother has spoken about Oldenburg as one of the towns she liked and spent quite a bit of time at. The nowheresville place is Goldenstedt. Oldenburg/Goldenburg/Goldenstedt.
Opps, went to Goldenstedt when I meant to go to Oldenburg (cause I knew we couldn’t get from Goldenstedt to the “village” without a bike). What a waste of time and euros! And annoying as a bus went past our accommodation to Oldenburg but we went by train because we’re train people. But the train went to Goldenstedt.
As I said, muddled brain.
But not all time in the countryside was wasted time.
We went for a long walk.
And I discovered what a moor is. We walked alongside one. I don’t think we have these in Australia.
We walked through forests and saw amazing displays of mushrooms.
We posed (OK, I made my compliant model pose) in front of a thatched-roof barn. We could hear the sheep within. They could hear us and bleated more loudly to be let out.
And we visited a Bronze Age burial site with hundreds of burial mounds. Absolutely amazing! When the heather is in flower, I imagine it would be a beautiful sight.
We also watched the cutest clock with people from the history of the town.
We got to pretend at being locals by using the local greeting, moin, which even Mr S mastered.
And Mr S chanced upon a German channel showing a game from the Rugby World Cup, which pleased him no end. And I got to eat cake, drink tea and read books while it drizzled for two days outside and I sat inside snug and warm. Which pleased me no end!
It is also lovely to note that the people here were friendlier than elsewhere in Germany. Which is heartening. We had three separate people ask if we needed help with directions, seeing as we were looking lost or holding a map. Elsewhere that just doesn’t happen. Germans studiously avoid making eye contact, never smile and definitely don’t proffer assistance.
Maybe country people all over are nicer? What do you think?
lucinda sans 