Day 2 - A surfeit of frogs
Trip Start
Aug 31, 2008
1
3
14
Trip End
Sep 13, 2008
Wildeshausen,
Germany
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Woken at 3am by rain, dozed off only to be woken again when the rain had stopped. The reason: large drops of water falling from overhanging trees onto the motorhome roof. Ever been woken at home by a dripping tap? Well triple the annoyance factor, plus the fact that there's no way to stop it, and you come close to how I felt. But eventually I got to sleep again, and woke to a beautiful blue sky sunny morning.
First stop was Ankum, a tiny place where the only car park was in the bus station. Imagine the confusion of the locals when my van turned up and drove past all the bus stop signs. I swear one old dear half stepped out to flag me down. I didn't have the heart to tell her I was going to Berlin, and not past her house.
Ankum has a ridiculously large church considering the size of the town. Marvellous carvings on the outside, and inside was quite an eye-opener. All the stained glass windows along the high sides of the aisle were ultra-modern looking, with abstract geometric patterns. It looked really odd, but surprisingly it worked well. The arches were alternating brick-red and cream-white sandstone, so the effect was similar to the mosque in Cordoba (if you've been there, you'll know what I mean). The rest of the interior was whitewashed, so I thought 'aha, that means I'm not in Spain", where every interior surface is smothered in religious stuff - quite overpowering.
Back to the bus station to pick up the van, and a bus had decided to park alongside me, which must have confused the locals even more. Perhaps the bus driver was jealous. Perhaps he was trying to box me in. Who knows...
Diesel here is much cheaper than at home (but then again, diesel anywhere is much cheaper than at home). PIN numbers haven't quite made it to Germany yet that I've found: they are using the right keypads, you just don't enter a PIN, but still have to sign. Obviously they are at changeover very soon.
Next stop was Quakenbrück, which actually translates as croak-bridge. I should have known. The little town centre was over-populated by any possible connection with frogs. They were in the shop windows, painted on walls, modelled in plastic, wood and brick (a brick frog?), anywhere from life size to 1 metre high monsters for kiddies to crawl over. Actually there was also some imagination involved here. Local businesses sometimes had a big plastic frog outside their shop which helped advertise their wares. So an opticians had a frog with glasses (no, it didn't have cataracts), a shoe shop had a frog with Nike trainers (what? - that was worth a photo) and a hairdressers had a frog with a frizzy wig. Oh dear. But it was all quite silly, and it brightened up an otherwise quite plain little town.
I then drove to Cloppenburg. Lovely scenery around here, all tree-lined straight roads, and the fields mostly contain wheat which is about head height. This place, according to my guidebook, has the very first open-air museum in Germany, containing many examples of farm buildings from the local areas, through the ages. All very interesting, but I didn't have the time to see it. Unfortunately, that was the only thing to see in Cloppenburg. I walked through the centre - twice - and I failed to see anything of interest. There was a Greek café where the only occupant was obviously the owner, singing VERY LOUD in Greek, frightening away any prospective customers. There was also a very nice young woman lifting large boxes out of a car. I was going to do the gentlemanly thing and ask her if she needed help, and was about to do so when four huge prop-forwards (or the German equivalent) came out of a shop and carried in two boxes each. Oh well, just as well, as I couldn't remember the German for "boxes". I thought at the time it was Schädel. Just as well I kept mum, as this means "skull" - the real word for box is Schachtel. Imagine the confusion, asking if I can assist her carrying her skulls. Bloody tourists...
I ended up at a campsite outside Wildeshausen, which I'll visit tomorrow. What a badly run place. After parking, I was directed to a holiday chalet, to book in. Fine I thought. But the rather large old woman who was there spoke no English, and by her thick eastern accent, probably spoke no German either (or little that I could understand). She kept me waiting for a full ten minutes, chatting to her friend and casting accusatory glances at me, and I think she was complaining about all the east Germans who had moved to the west, not pulling their weight. Or maybe she was complaining about the west Germans who had moved to the east, buying up all the cheap properties. Or maybe both, and she just liked complaining. Anyway, she eventually started asking me questions - I thought I was at a job interview. When I told her I came from near York she lit up like a light bulb, and waxed incessantly on how nice York Münster (their word) was. She was so caught up in her talking that I had to remind her that I thought I really should pay. Turns out the whole bill was only 9 euros (about 7 pounds). Ridiculously cheap. I think I got preferential treatment. If I had said I come from near Leeds she would probably have scowled, tutted, nodded "no" quietly to herself, and evicted me.
So here I am now, just outside Wildeshausen, and I hope to be in Berlin (or at least on the edge of it) by Wednesday afternoon. Speak to you all soon!
Shane.
