A QUICK GETAWAY…

We needed to snatch up the lingering rays of summer and make a hasty getaway…but…we didn’t want to be the masters of our ship…no putting on our thinking caps and booking flights, hotels and renting cars and listening to muddly directions from the GPS…turn left turn right and then…silence. We were going on an organized tour…like we used to in the past and swore never to do again. But times have changed and we were willing to be led around like a herd of mindless sheep and pushed into coaches to sit in comfort and watch acres and acres of foreign countrysides and landscapes unroll…and nod off and snatch forty winks here and forty winks there and sink into deeper sweeter slumbers with heads lolling about, only to wake up with a start and a snort to the guide’s voice on the microphone saying…`Now we’ll be disembarking the bus…`And so quickly?’ we ask each other.

The only available tour was called the…The Diamond Of The Rhine…Oh how words can conjure up such deliciously delightful images. Rivers are so romantic, as ancient as the land itself, traversing plains and tumbling down rugged terrains…witnesses to the historical narrative of the land…the marching armies, the thunderous hooves, the clashing irons, the upheavals and bloodshed… WE BOOKED THE HOLIDAY IN AN INSTANT. Then came the headache of what to pack…and what on earth shall I wear…I had no clothes again. You’d ask me…`What happened to all the ones you’d been buying????’…Well, they were just not me…So I went straight to Benetton’s and bought several items and among them, a pair of bermudas, loose and skirt-like…similar to the ones planters used to wear on rubber plantations in old Malaya…even that opens the floodgates of memories of my childhood…of the orange evening sun blinking through the rubber trees and the leaves swishing in the monsoon winds and buckets of torrential rain splashing down and faded sepia photos of us… in long frilly dresses and fat buckled shoes… looking into the camera with mouths slightly agape in the ignorance of those times.

Back to the present…I came home and spread the clothes on the bed…bermudas, flared trousers…thought I’d go modern…and a couple of tops all about the same colour…and in came the cleaning lady and scrutinized them. The evening before we left, we packed our bags…Yiannis always took the same set of clothes and I flung some combinations into the suitcase and…a belt…on the advice of the cleaning lady…`Just tuck everything in and fasten a belt around them.’ And off we went fleeing our house in the setting sun without so much as a glance backward. We were going to stay overnight in Athens to catch the early morning flight to Frankfurt. We had to wake up at 4.30 am. to catch the 5.00 am. hotel shuttle to the airport. Bleary-eyed we sat around waiting at the airport…and then, just before boarding, a voice crackled over the loudspeaker… the flight was to be delayed by…FOUR AND A HALF HOURS…the crew had been stricken down by some ailment…There was an uproar!!!…Just our luck! The whole jingbang had been taken ill and replacements would be flying in from Germany!…BUT HOW WERE WE SUPPOSED TO KILL FOUR AND A HALF HOURS???…Well…we complained a fair bit and then we walked around dragging our hand luggage, visited the shops and I was tempted to buy a lipstick, had several coffees, surfed our mobiles, visited all the toilets and slumped on some chairs and walked around again and slumped on other chairs and time dragged on and our brains drifted…and… Yiannis suddenly jumped up…` THEY’RE CALLING OUR NAMES!!!’…We ran to the gate and were met with some tight-lipped staff, bristling with annoyance, who claimed they’d been calling us for the last half hour and… where were we and… the flight was about to leave without us…`LEAVE WITHOUT US!!!’ exclaimed Yiannis…`YOU WERE THE ONES WHO WERE FOUR AND A HALF HOURS LATE!!!!’ I tugged at his sleeve…`Let’s just get on the plane.’ What a terrible start!

In the afternoon we were in Frankfurt. The last time we were here was years and years ago on our way to China. We were actually young then and stood on this very same bridge spanning the River Main a tributary of the Rhine…and rhymes with Rhine. Annie…then in primary school…and I, had smiled in front of Yiannis’ Pentax camera on this bridge…and now…it was just Yiannis and me with much older faces, taking it in turns to peer into each other’s mobile cameras…leaning against the iron rails now weighed down with bunches of love padlocks…supposedly locking the hearts of lovers…forever.

Our next stop was Heidelberg. We reached this lovely historic city built on the banks of the River Neckar at about five, late afternoon. The guide took us around the old city, on the paved pedestrian streets and we trod behind wearily…sleep deprived and brain drained. We went past many old landmarks which I have very little recollection of…the oldest university in Germany, the Student Prison, The Witch Tower which later became the Thief’s Tower and on and on we went. Then we came to the Old Bridge or The Karl Theodor Bridge with the crumbling ancient castle atop the mountain frowning on us…the swarming tourists…a bunch of invaders…a crowd of barbarians…`Ah and here we have the famous monkey…’droned on the guide. We had gone past the point of being interested in a monkey sculpture…until…she said something about…`they say it wards off the evil eye’…Yiannis seemed more alert…`they say it grants you certain wishes depending on where you rub it’[ like Aladdin’s lamp]. There was laughter and smiles all around and everyone perked up and clustered around the bronze monkey, holding up a mirror with its two attendant mice…and touched the various parts of the simian for whatever their hearts desired. Yiannis , who had thrown coins into every fountain and wishing well around the world, stood behind the group. When it was his turn…he studied it carefully…passed his palms over the whole monkey and took in the mice as well…to get all our wishes granted…KEEP THE EVIL EYE AT BAY…VISIT HEIDELBERG AGAIN…and be showered with…WEALTH…and…FERTILITY. The highlight of our visit was plonking down on a wooden bench on the bank of the Neckar and sharing a sandwich from Athens airport and watching the barges slip by…the river rippling gently under the mellowing sun, winding down for the evening.

Our last stop for the day was Strasbourg, some three hours away, where we would be staying for the rest of our trip and making incursions into Germany. It was almost eleven when we got there and most of the restaurants were closed, except for McDonald’s, a few paces away from the hotel. We thought it would be simple…just grab a simple takeaway and take it away, two burgers and some fries…Now where were we when life got so complicated?… There were screens all around where you had to tap in your order by answering a battery of questions…FRENCH or GERMAN…we can also do ENGLISH or state language of your choice…BEEF or CHICKEN…we also have FISH…HOMESTYLE or otherwise and let me not start on the otherwise…QUARTER POUNDER or DOUBLE QUARTER POUNDER…DOUBLE BIG…SINGLE BIG…DELUXE… with or without CRISPY BACON…each choice flowering out into a jungle of other choices with side dishes and drinks…SMOOTHIES, SLUSHIES, FRUTIES and the interminable list went on and on and some of our answers were wrong and the order wouldn’t proceed. A nice young assistant came forward and helped us, repeating the choices but enunciating his words carefully for fear that we were mentally impaired and we kept insisting…` No no we don’t want any of that, just ordinary burgers and fries…please’[ do we have to get down on our knees?] When we got to the hotel we munched into the burgers ravenously leaving streaks of ketchup on our chins and cheeks and pointing at each other’s faces…me doing most of the pointing and he brushing it off with…`Leave me alone I don’t care.’

It was almost 1am when we were done with our showers and ready for bed. But there was a great big clamour outside that drew us to the window. There was a noisy brawl in the street below…boys on bicycles pushing each other and shouting into the night and lying sprawled on the ground…boys who never went to sleep on summer nights but gathered in front of the railway station…GARE DE STRASBOURG… opposite the hotel and caused a ruckus. The station all lit up with its historical buildings and graceful arches, visible through its glass cocoon, twinkled in the night as if to say…`well boys will be boys.’

Well that’s all I have for now and do come back for the rest of our trip in the next blog post. So cheers and stay well!