Basel, Switzerland
Tuesday, July 24, 1990
In the morning, we still had not been able to arrange a ride to Hamburg. Maria tried a few phone calls while Peter was at work, but it appeared hopeless. Waiting for Peter, Paul and I walked to a beautiful, near-by park, visited an exhibit of hideous sculptures, and read. Upon our return, Maria announced that Peter had found us a ride to Hannover. We lunched on cream cakes and coffee, then Peter took us to the pick-up spot. We didn't have a chance to find a WC before our ride appeared. We piled in, quickly thanking Peter for his surprise gift of Toblerone. Our driver got quite lost trying to leave Berlin, but, 40 minutes later, we were auto-bahning. We began a conversation with our driver, who spoke brilliant English, discovering that he is studying to be a translator at Heidelberg University - Italian is his forte. I don't think he likes Americans, though he said I didn't sound as much like I were chewing bubble gum when I spoke. He also liked when I answered his question, "Do you see a difference between East Germany and West Germany?" with "Yes - West Germany has no trees."
When we arrived in Hannover, Paul and I decided to train to Hamburg in order to ensure our compartment. We had a quick pizza dinner at Hamburg before boarding our train and returning to Hannover ... and onward to Basel. We had the compartment to ourselves virtually the entire time. Paul slept well; I, fitfully. We were delayed in the middle of nowhere/the night for nearly two hours. This actually meant we got more sleep.
