Tag Along

Today is Friday. Greg offers to take me to get a rental car at lunchtime. Maybe ‘offers’ is the wrong word, it was probably more likely that he broke down under the stress of my constant cajoling. Anyway you want to look at it is fine with me. So Greg takes me to the rental car office which is, of course, out of cars. The idiot that has been thinking, and talking, about renting a car for several days has apparently never bothered to actually reserve one. However the girl at the rental car place (the one with the huge … tracks of land) calls their office across the river, and yes they have cars. After a little more needling, Greg drives me across the river to the other rental office. After he is assured that I will get a car, he high-tails it out of there.

The girl at the new rental office (she doesn't have huge … tracks of land, but she definitely had eyes like saucers) writes me up. As she explains the insurance policy in broken, yet …somehow … irresistible, English I just keep nodding. “OK, you want me to drop my pants, then turn around and bend over, while Hans takes that long rusty pipe and …”

It turns out that they only have one car, and it’s not the Volkswagen Polo that my bank account and I are hoping for. No, it’s a Mini Cooper or a Cooper Mini; I’m not sure what the order is supposed to be. Did you ever see the movie “The Italian Job”? Picture a 270 lb guy driving one of those. Oh yeah, it’s a convertible to boot! The car is actually pretty roomy inside, and really handles pretty well. It’s got some pep, and almost all the cars here are standard transmissions. So you can really get the feel of the little bugger as you’re winding it out while whipping through the gears (hey, it’s a rental!).

Once on the highway, the sheer joy of careening down the road is suddenly interrupted by one question, “Where the hell am I?” Now let me assure you that no amount of prior instruction can possibly prepare you for the feeling of driving in a foreign country, alone, having only ever walked within a two mile radius of your hotel, and knowing only one bus line, and almost no German, and all the signs are in … well, it’s not English that’s for sure.

This might be a good time to explain a little something about Ole’ Adolph’s beloved Autobahn. It was certainly THE idea of the time, and its implementation made Germany a power to be reckoned with. And like most ideas, it is often the second or third entrants to the party that refine it and/or make it comprehensible to the teeming millions . So while the German Autobahn was the forbearer, it was the US Interstate Highway System that really took advantage of the idea. The Interstate system in the US is numbered somewhat logically: east-west highways are given even numbers; north-south highways are delineated by odd numbers. All the exits are numbered sequentially, and in most states are given the numbers of the nearest mile-marker. So if you were traveling on I-80 E (east) in Pennsylvania, Exit 176 would be 176 miles from the beginning of I-80 in western PA. The exit numbers start again at mile marker 1 in New Jersey. If you’ve noticed, when you get onto an Interstate, there will usually be a sign for the next major town. In Germany the highways have no exit numbers, just town names. The highways are also not given a descriptor of North or South. All the sign tells you, is which major city is next. So instead of coming to an exit that says “I-65N to Indianapolis”, it would just read “I-65 Indianapolis”, from whichever direction you were approaching it. If you are not sure which city you are heading towards, and where you are, there is no hope.

I believe that this is the reason that Americans always seem to know less geography than Europeans. It’s not just the size and density of countries, it’s because you need to know geography to be able to leave your home town. Much like cash registers have eroded the ability to make change, the Exit numbers on highways have eroded our knowledge of geography. It’s a conspiracy I tell you! Speaking of conspiracies, has anyone heard of or from JD Bandy lately? Wonder what he’s up to.

OK, so now that we are up to speed on some of the German highway nomenclature, allow me to toss in another wrinkle: for every major city like Wiesbaden there are several exits, ALL named Wiesbaden and then the next smaller town or section of the city. So instead of having an Exit 15 North and Exit 15 South, the sign might say Wiesbaden-Biebrich and Wiesbaden-Bierstadt. Sometimes it’s initialed, as in Wi-Sonnenburg and the like. So let me paint this picture for you: we’ve got one ignorant American, alone, and driving a pregnant skateboard, at high speeds ... hardly a recipe for success.

Where were we? Oh yeah, “Where the hell am I?” As it turns out, I get a little lost on the way back from the car rental place. No problem I think, I’ll just keep driving and I’ll see something I recognize… After about a half an hour of driving I pull over to turn around. In the rearview mirror I see an older man walking down the street. I get out of the car, and approach him.

“Sprechen zie English?”

“Nein”

“Uh…woe ist die Bahnhoff?” (Where is the train station?)

“Which one?” (he replies in perfect English)

“Uh… uh… Schiersteiner Strasse und Konrad-Adenauer” (this is an intersection near the train station)

He laughs. He’s still speaking German but I can roughly make out what he’s saying. I want to know where the train station in Wiesbaden is, but I am not in Wiesbaden. Apparently I’ve taken a wrong turn, and am now in some other town. The old man is laughing, waving his arms, and patting me on the back. He saying something that sounds a lot like, “You ignorant American, didn’t you ever take geography?” I thank him, get in the Mini and drive off in the direction he was waving toward.

Sure enough, and by pure dumb luck, after a couple of kilometers, I figure out where I am. So I drive to the PX to get gas coupons and a map (which probably would’ve helped earlier). Then I stop by the gas station and the liquor store to get some bourbon. Of course they don’t have any Old Forester, so I end up getting Woodford Reserve (a sacrifice I am willing to make). After this, I drive to the Air Base to finish my in-processing. I go to one office and the guy there tells me exactly the opposite thing that everyone else has been telling me. He’s one of these guys who is so sure of himself that you just know he has to be wrong. But, OK. I don’t know who is telling me the right thing, and right now I don’t care. So I wander over to the housing office to take a look at some listings. The housing office is, of course, closing just as I get to it. I leave and decide to head back to the office and, sure enough, get lost again. I find my way back to the office, manage to park and get into the building without any further incidents. At the elevator there is a little girl and her mother standing next to a table with some boxes stacked on top of it. The little girl approaches me and asks me a question. So now I am faced with a dilemma … which goes better with fine bourbon, Tagalongs or Thin Mints?

Tonight it’s the Thin Mints, maybe tomorrow it will be the Tagalongs.