“Reeeeeelaaaaaxxx people! This is Holland, not China!”
The whiff of ganja was floating in the air when I stepped out of the railway station and into Damrak; sun shining; chicks everywhere; cyclists going by with spliffs clamped between their teeth; trams rumbling like thunder; and I stumbled into the Prix d’Ami coffee shop bumping into a guy I’d met about a year earlier and we kind of took up conversation from back then as if it had been only yesterday, pausing briefly to gawp at the leggy blonde serving the tea.
Once half an hour had turned into two hours I finally extricated myself as a mountain bike cop sped by (without joint), his haste hurrying me back to the rail terminus for a 6 hour ICE train trip across the Dutch bulb fields and through the wind and solar farms of Germany, bisecting the country all the way to Berlin.
Devouring a bizarre black bread horseradish ham sandwich we paused at Minden (see photo above), a town well-known to the British armed forces, many of whom were based there following the 2nd World War and throughout the Cold war and where some soldiers remain to this day. A friend who served in Minden during the 1980s told me that his batallion spent most of its time scrapping with Turks and Gypsies at fun fairs. "One big coconut shy on friday nights," were his actual words.
During the Cold War, as most know, Germany was split in two. One of the main reasons for building the Wall in 1961 was to halt a brain drain that saw the East’s best minds going West. By 1990 16 million were living in the red East with 63 million in the capitalist West. Before the Wall went up about 2.6 million people had already fled to the money worshipping side.
As we crossed the former Iron Curtain into the former Eastern block of the former Soviet bloc the fields were packed full of four metre high corn, sagging in the August heat, while fat raindrops splattered the window, a storm brewing in the smoky black sky to the north.
Housed and fed in the posh side of town (the former Western zone), the streets were full of Porsches, Benzes, BMWs, Minis, Smart electric cars, and, I was pleased to note, hundreds of bicycles with integrated bike lanes. Way to go Berlin!
The gay receptionist (there were quite a few of them and I did discover that this area was a shirtlifters’ paradise) rented me a bike with a kid’s seat on the back – the early risers had nabbed everything else –
There were Stalinist tower blocks too (see photo above middle). Not the monstrosities plastered all over the other ex-commie states, but much more bourgeois, orderly and cared for high rises. Totally Germanic, despite the Russians breathing right down their necks.
The heavy, muggy sky was eventually cracked open by thunder and lightning and monsoon rain soaked me to the skin as I made my way to the Irish pub one evening where I got chatting to two Israelis - the woman a Moroccan Jew - in the smoking room and after a few pints I mused, "You know what? The Arabs don't hate you for Palestine or religion, they hate you because you kicked their collective ass in the 6 day war."
"You seem to have enjoyed the mini-bar, sir, " the recptionist observed. As she finalised the paperwork I glanced round the lobby and caught sight of four unveiled Arab women in habitual garb - Gucci handbags on the arm, jet-black abayas and scarves, but faces uncovered for all to see.
When they left, putting on big sunglasses as they circled the revolving door, strolling up the street with an air of understated elation, free of the husband's control, free of the veil, yet still in black sacks, I asked the receptionist where they were from. "Saudi Arabia," came the reply - my dreaded next destination. Fate was tapping me on the shoulder.
Outside the terminal I crashed into a wall of heat. It was 86% humidity and I was back in the sand.