Whenever a soldier goes over to a foreign country the military thinks it is a good idea if they can find their way around and speak a little of the language.   They have a program called "Headstart"  it covers the local customs, like that the Germans find it offensive if you relieve yourself on the street, or that beer is consumed warm and that asking for ice will only get you an ice cream beer float, which the locals don't drink but amuses them to serve to stupid American GI's who want cold beer.  

They also teach you some German such as "Wo ist der Bahnhof", which if I remember correctly means, Where is the train station.  Since they only teach you to speak enough German to say; left, right and where is the train station, any answer in German will not make much sense.    If fact unless you are standing in front of the train station almost any reply will not help you.   People don't say, "links (left) or rechts (right) .   They don't even say (Go down a block, turn LEFT, and then down another two blocks and turn RIGHT.  This would be almost impossible to understand by your average GI but they might have a chance.

They say something like, "Du gehst die Straße runter bis zur Bäckerei, nicht Karl Bäckerei sondern Franz Bäckerei. Die mit den tollen Brötchen. Dann gehst Du nach Norden auf der Illesheimstrasse bis Du zu dem Laden kommst der früher ein Bücherladen war aber nun etwas ganz anderes ist. Egal, Du gehst in Richtung der grossen Statue im Stadtzentrum und der Bahnhof ist gleich links gegenüber dem Park. Du kannst ihn nicht verpassen."

Which sounds pretty reasonable when you translate it to English, "You go down the street until you reach the bakery not Karl's bakery, but Franz's bakery. The one with the great rolls. Then you turn north on Illesheim street go on until you get to the store that use to be a book store but is something else now. Any way, you turn toward the big statue in the town center, and the train station is just off to the left across from the park. You can not miss it."   Of course since the only German I spoke at the time was; "links, rechts, and Wo ist der Bahnhof"  I spent most of my time pretty lost. 

I finish the Headstart course before Christmas, Cheryl will be coming over in a couple of weeks and with my excellent command of the German language, all six words, I go out apartment hunting.   I was raised in a very old New England style house which had a lot of character, which means that it was drafty, had an old oil furnace that took up almost the entire basement, and the stairs creaked like a horror movie.   I have  a lot of fond memories of that house and I like character.   The base housing agent showed me on-base housing first, which I vowed I would never live in.  It was like they picked up college housing from the 50's and dumped it in beautiful Bavaria.   You also have to live surrounded by a bunch of GI's which I didn't want to do.  Living on an Army base is like living in a soap opera, too much drinking, lots of gossip, murder, intrigue and sooner or later everyone is going to sleep with everyone else.   She then showed me off-base housing in the American community, it looked exactly like on-base housing in fact I believe it was built at the same time by the same contractors.  It is also exclusively occupied by American soldiers so you are really in the same soap opera just on a different channel.   That meant that I would have to look at the next town over, Bad Windsheim. 

It is a very pretty town and the Bad refers to the heated Baths that people from all over come to enjoy.  The housing agent shows me a few apartments that I can't afford and then shows me this great place.  It reminds me of home and was built in 1774.  I walk up the well worn stairs which creak like a horror movie and I think over two hundred years ago the first people to move into this home were most likely discussing, "Do you think those American's will really beat the British?"    I fall in love with the place.  It has a bedroom, dinning room, living room, very small kitchen and it is completely furnished.  The furniture also has a lot of character most of it I think is as old as the house.  The best thing is that it will cost me only half of my housing allowance.  I want to do some skiing and travel while I'm over in Europe, but with a monthly paycheck of only $350 it was going to be hard.   If I take this place my take home pay will double.   I'm not sure if Cheryl will like it but I don't have to sign a a long term lease so she can always find us some place else if she doesn't. 

I agree to take it and now that I am rich I go to the Post Exchange (PX) and buy a new stereo.  I rationalize that filling the house with beautiful music will help me win Cheryl over to the place, plus I know once Cheryl comes I will no longer be able to buy anything.   I put it in our new apartment and notice that if you step on the floor in front of the stereo the record skips, the place has character.   I have a couple of days off for the Christmas New Years holiday.  I spend the first night in our apartment alone, get up early the next day and then head off to the train station.  I did a reconnaissance the day before to ensure that I would not have to ask anyone, "Wo ist der Bahnhof."    It is cold with some snow on the ground.  Christmas in Germany, I have always loved it.  It seems like this is where Christmas was invented or at least perfected.  My wife is coming in today, I have my own apartment life is looking pretty good.   I have to change trains a number of times which scares me since my command of the train schedules is just a bit worse than my command of the German language

I get the train to Nürnberg which is a good start but I must have read the schedule wrong in Nürnberg because I head south from Nürnberg to Frankfurt.  Unfortunately Frankfurt is not south of Nürnberg, München is.   I am half way to München by the time my a friendly conductor explains this to me.  I am really screwed, I have a room reserved for the night in the NCO Bachelors quarters in Frankfort and Cheryl is scheduled to arrive around noon the next day.  I don't have any extra money since I just bought a pretty expensive stereo.  I have tickets for the return trip for Cheryl and I but I don't have enough money to buy a ticket from München to Frankfurt.   The conductor can see that I am about to cry like a little girl and it doesn't look good to have a Infantry Sergeant crying on your train.   He understands that I have ended up in München because I am stupid not because I was trying to get some extra miles so he gives me a ticket from München to Frankfurt.     I calm down and try and relax on the train ride heading south.  It is late when we pull into the München Bahnhof. 

I run over to the schedule to see when the next train to Frankfurt leaves.  I can not make heads or tails out of the schedule.  I check it a couple of times but they don't make sense, the European's use military time. 13:00 = 1:00 pm, 14:00 = 2:00 pm, and so on.  I have been in the military for a couple of years so I understand the time, except the time is now 21:35 or 9:35 pm and the latest time they have for the train to Frankfurt is 21:00 or 9:00 pm.     I finally get it, I have missed the last train out.    The first train leaves at 07:15.  I don't have enough money to get a hotel room but I have 10 hours to kill before my train leaves.    I buy a candy bar and wonder how to make it last for ten hours.    I decide that I can afford a beer which if I nurse might buy me a couple of hours.  I go into the bar and after ordering a beer find out the place closes at 10:00 pm.

I get kicked out at 10:01 pm and then hang around the station.   Now around midnight everything is closed, no more trains are leaving or coming in. The station is surprisingly not empty, a lot of older men are hanging around.  I can not find anyplace to sit so end up going to the restroom a number of times just so I can sit somewhere.   I notice that the restroom is a pretty busy place for a train station that doesn't have any trains coming in or leaving for another six hours.  

It finally dawns on me that this is a "Gay" pick up place.   I have confused a couple of the local guys with my comings and goings.  I suppose they believe that I must be picky or something.   I get approached a couple of times but since I am already in the train station my topics of conversation are severely limited.   I can not really ask, "Wo ist der Bahnhof" while I am standing in the train station.   One guy who has tried to repeatedly strike up a conversation, or relationship, with me gets very mad when I fend off his advances.  I suppose he is more confused than I am.  I am a young guy hanging around a "Gay" meeting place pretending to wait for a train, when no train is going to come in until the next morning.  I can not explain to him that I am on my way to Frankfurt from Nürnberg via München since he doesn't speak English, I don't speak German and even if we did speak the same language I am not sure he would believe it.    He finally gets mad at me and opens and closes his umbrella at me like I am a flock of pigeons that he his trying to scare into the air.   I am not a flock of pigeons but I'm pretty scared.

The traffic starts to dwindle down since even guys on the prowl for a good time don't want to hang around a train station after a certain hour.  I am sitting on the floor thinking that the "Headstart" course should have covered more than that German's like to drink warm beer.     I fall asleep, which is pretty amazing and wake up as people step over me.   I wipe the drool from the side of my mouth and wait for the train to Frankfurt to pull in.  I am the first one on the train and annoy every person I can find that speaks English asking them if this is the train to Frankfurt.   I ask one guy, "Excuse me do you speak English?"  He replies in perfect English, "No.  I don't, but the guy over there does."   That confuses me but not knowing what else to do I go over to the other guy and ask, "Is this the train to Frankfurt?"   I find ten people including the conductor who all confirm that this is indeed the train to Frankfort, but I am still pretty nervous.   I don't want to miss picking up Cheryl but maybe just as importantly I don't want to spend another night in a train station.

I am anxious every time the train stops since I don't want to miss my stop and end up spending time in the Düsseldorf train station tonight.  We pull into the Frankfurt station and I swear that I hear applause as I get off the train.   I'm pretty sure they were happy to have me finally off their train.   I am a little early so I wait for Cheryl to arrive.   She looks worst than I do when I see her.   The flight was very long and she had a screaming kid behind her on the plane.  She is just as confused as I was when I first arrived in country.  I grab her bags and we head over to the train station.  I show her how to read the train schedule and then she corrects me since I would have put us on the train leaving Frankfurt from Nürnberg instead of the train leaving Frankfurt going to Nürnberg.   I am very glad she corrected me but it doesn't instill a lot of confidence in her about traveling around Europe with me.     We have to change trains in Nürnberg and I almost put us on the train to Heidelberg instead.   She decides to take command.

We pull into Bad Windsheim late.  It is New Years Eve, dark, cold and I get lost trying to find my way back to the apartment.   We finally find it around 11:30 pm.  I spent all of my money the night before so her last meal was on the airplane.  It is too late to go out now and she is very tired.   She sees the place and is not impressed. 

The same steps that made me wonder about all of the people that came before us didn't seem to impress her.  The hallway that has held conversations about the Revolutionary war, the French Revolution, first flights of balloons, the Wright brothers, World War One and Two seemed only to be a really old hallway to her.  The apartment held history to me, it smelled funny to her.   She was exhausted and rather disappointed with the whole thing in general and with me in particular.  I turned on the stereo to fill our home with music, she asked if I could turn that junk off.   She asked were the bedroom was and I pulled back the curtains to the dining room which confused her until I walk through it and pulled back another set of curtains to the bedroom.   She asked, "Don't we have any doors in this place?"  She walked pass me without waiting for my reply and dropped fully clothed into the bed.   She was asleep before I could come up with a snappy reply to her comment about no doors.  

At midnight our new neighbors started to set off fireworks.  I called her to the window saying, "You have to come see this."   She told me that I'd better leave her alone.   I sat up alone watching bottle rockets skittle off the wooden shingled roof of our apartment as the New Year of 1979 came roaring in.     I looked over at my loving wife and was really afraid of what she was going to tell me in the morning when she inspected our new apartment.

But that is another story...

  Part I: Stationed in Germany

  Part II: Picking up Cheryl from Frankfort (This page)

  Part III: Apartment in Germany

Note:
Special thanks to my friend Wolfgang Ahrens for his translation help.  Wolfgang and I are planning a trip on the Trans-Siberian railway in May of 2004.  I hope to capture the trip in a series of travel logs or a short book.