I head out onto the
street, past the once-upon-a-time train station and looking up and down I see
just rows of dull, faded houses. In search of a main street I start
walking. I really need a coffee and something to eat. The yogurt I ate about
five hours ago, before my business English class in the city seems like a
distant memory. I walk and walk, turning corners, seeing more and more
houses. Man, where is a bakery when you desperately need one?
Normally, there are about 5 on each block, in every little German town.
But, not here. I haven't even seen a person...I think only houses
live here. I see street names like 'Klosterstrasse' and 'Goethestrasse'
and, forgetting my grumbling stomach, am filled with hope that getting off here
wasn't a huge waste of time. I walk and walk, but not a convent or statue
or cathedral or park in sight. Nothing. Just houses. I'm
beginning to think that I should've at least told someone of my plan to get off
here. They probably would've said, “You’re going where? Budenheim?”
I keep walking.
There has got to be a post office or store or bank here somewhere. I turn
another grey corner and across the street, in front of me, is a massive
chemical plant. Super. Why isn't this in my guidebook? If I
actually had a guidebook, it would most likely say, 'do not stop in Budenheim,
unless you unfortunately have to work at the big, fume-spewing chemical plant
with thousands of other poor souls". But, I will say that the grounds
surrounding the plant are very clean and manicured...I am still in Germany of
course.
Then I feel the first
raindrop. Thinking that I should find
the umbrella which is somewhere in my giant bag, the heavens open up and it
starts to pour. I quickly struggle to open my cheap umbrella which I have
learned to carry with me now that I live in Germany. I don't even think I
owned an umbrella when I lived in Canada. I had a sleeping bag, a flashlight,
a bottle of water and some granola bars in my car at all times, in case I got
stuck in a snowstorm, but an umbrella? We usually just waited five
minutes and the weather would change…to snow.
(Writer's
interruption: a train just flew by the platform, going so fast my heart
almost stopped. I'm writing this, while sitting on a beaten-up, old bench
on the station platform and apparently so few people want to get off here that
it’s a rare train which makes the effort to stop. So, I wait and I write.
Luckily, I have nowhere important to be at the moment. Great guy
and the romanian are working day and night on the baustelle, trying to get the
last flat in the big haus finished by August. I have the good fortune of
seeing them only when I call them in for supper, which also happens to be when
I feel most like Caroline Ingalls...especially if I happen to be wearing my
apron and bonnet.)
After passing the
chemical plant I see a small hill and decide to go high and get a lay of the
land. I stubbornly think that there must be something redeeming about
this town and I'm hoping that from above I will finally see all the pretty,
cultural things. All of a sudden, the wind picks up and tries to rip the
umbrella out of my hands. The spokes flip up and as I struggle to get
them back down I'm pelted with rain. Now I'm drenched. I think I'm
close to giving up. At the top of the hill, all I see is a distant church
tower, the fuming chimneys of the plant, and houses. I can't even see the
Rhein from here, and I thought this was a river town.
Oh, thank the good
lord, a train just stopped. I'm getting on it and I don't even care where
it's going. This was 25 minutes of my life which I'm never getting back,
but at least I did what I set out to do...see something new. Why, again,
did I want to do that?
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