Hit the Road, Jack
This week was the Big One. The Great Leap into the Unknown. This weekend, we hit the road.
The weekdays passed by with the mildness and uniformity that has characterised much of the past month. My novel writing has continued to occupy the morning hours - I have now written over 33,000 words since we first touched down in Europe, and am closing in on completion of the first draft - save for a handful of scenes that I have discovered must be added along the way. The riverbank flooded up and over the path, cutting our afternoon walks short, and so we have made do with trips to get groceries; or with forays into the city, hunting for Christmas presents. Visa issues and research have been prominent, too, and have been a source of disappointment and tension. I have to say that the local immigration office has the dubious honour of having been the worst parody of an organisation I have ever come across. They are simply uncontactable; dozens of phone calls, several emails, and no response whatsoever. One time, we even managed to get through, but the woman who answered seemed to have no idea about the business for which she was employed, and stated she was unable to book an appointment for us, suggesting we call back another time. The whole situation is forcing us to consider other options that would allow us to travel through Europe beyond the three-month limit of my current visa; however, the options we have found so far would mean big changes to our hopes for a year-long European adventure.
But enough of that - here and now, the open road calls. By the end of the week, Alessandra’s protracted sickness began to call a retreat, and so we started preparations for our first proper trip in Siegfried - whom we have begun to call ‘Ziggy.’ Mateo was to celebrate his fourth birthday on the 20th of December, leaving us a few days for a road trip to get a feel for vanlife once more…and to discover the gaps in knowledge that only make themselves known once you’re on the road.
…
Saturday came, and we were all set. We moved into Ziggy with our remaining possessions and, by mid-afternoon, we set out for Cologne. Stopping at a service station to fill up our water tank, we encountered our first challenge: the tap was too big for our attachments. Where, then, were we to fill up? That was a problem to solve later on. For the moment, we used the stop to fill up the portable toilet - the top half with fresh water, the bottom half with a diluted deodoriser - as we silently dreaded the moment we would have to cross a threshold in our relationship that would change things forever: pooping in close quarters. The sun set early, so much of our trip was done in the dark, but we arrived at the lakeside campsite safe and sound. We set up camp, glad of Ziggy’s built-in heating, and packed away the odds and ends that had not yet found their place before devouring a cold dinner and calling it a day.
Ziggy, parked up ready for the evening.
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Sunday began with an unexpected odyssey, which I shall entitle ‘the Toilet Saga.’ You see, Alessandra didn’t want to be the first to grace the portable toilet with a bowel movement, so it was up to me. Thing is, I didn’t need to go. Try as I might I couldn’t squeeze out so much as a nugget - and I wasn’t going to lie to her. I had failed in my task, and Alessandra, despairing, saw but one option: a twenty-minute walk to a portable Dixie toilet, which Google Maps indicated sat along the lakeside pathway. No amount of pleading would cause her to reconsider. With a sigh, I put a roll of toilet paper in my pocket and joined her, watching the kayaks and rowers pass us by on the long strip of water as we walked. At last, we arrived at the spot. No toilets - they must have been removed for the winter. Down but not out, we searched for toilet blocks and found a 24-hour toilet…another twenty minutes’ walk away. Off we went, our spirits lighter for the knowledge that this toilet would definitely still be there. Another long walk and there it was, dull and ugly and glorious…and locked. The men’s toilet had an out-of-order sign on the door, and the women’s was locked up tight. By now, Alessandra’s stoic composure was cracking. She needed to go. But there was nothing for it - we were now halfway around the lake, and the only course of action was to begin the long trek back to Ziggy and drive somewhere - assuming, of course, that Alessandra remained unchanged in her feelings towards using the porta-potty. We got back to the van, and Alessandra was holding like a champ, entirely unyielding. We duly input the address for a nearby McDonald’s and drove there, safe in the knowledge that all McDonald’s have toilets.
Well, not all of them, as it turns out. The one we arrived at was small and toiletless, and Alessandra received no satisfaction outside of a bag of chicken nuggets - which she undoubtedly bought to bolster her flagging morale. Then, hope! There was a toilet across the road! But alas! It was being cleaned. Perhaps when they were done? Alessandra checked, and found that the price of admission was fifty cents. We pooled our collective change and counted, and our faces fell. We had forty cents total. We didn’t even have any notes to exchange somewhere. We eyed the petrol station across the road, outside of which an ATM stood proudly, ready for use. Okay, we thought. Okay, we’ll just withdraw cash and buy something small from the petrol station to convert it to coinage. We approached the machine carefully, as one might approach an easily-startled deer, only to find it smashed and out-of-order, its screen a dull, cracked black. This was getting ridiculous. We entered the petrol station, and found it, too, had a toilet…with a fifty cent entry fee. Exasperated, Alessandra walked up to the counter and asked if she could get cash out, explaining that we needed to use the toilet but had no change, and the ATM was out of order and the toilet across the road was being cleaned; and, at last - though he said they did not do cash out - the cashier gave her a special coin to use for the restrooms.
She was in there for a long time, no doubt approaching Nirvana. I went too, just to celebrate our accomplishment, and the toilet cubicle played classical music for me as I sat in a state of mixed relief and jubilation. We had succeeded - against all odds - to find and use a toilet.
You would think that, after such an ordeal, we would just pack it in and call it a day, but we were only just beginning. At peace in our bodies and with the world once more, we left Ziggy by a train station and took a train into Cologne. It was a huge, fascinating place, absolutely packed with people for the festive season. We wriggled our way through sprawling Christmas markets and were squeezed out just in front of Cologne’s great cathedral, immediately overcome by a feeling of awe at the sheer scale of it. The magnificent building dominated the central plaza. Hundreds of spires rose like layered stalagmites, jutting up into the sky, corners capped by gargoyles of all shapes and sizes, the entryways carved out with the figures of saints and elaborate, gothic patterns. The detail was such that the eyes began to ache and the mind to swim at the attempt to take in even a fraction of the whole. It was simply too much for the mind to hold - even for a moment - without compressing and simplifying it to a mere impression of grandeur.
The grand cathedral.
The inside of the cathedral was even more overwhelming: statues of carved wood were flanked with darkened oil paintings describing Biblical scenes; huge stone pillars supported the high-vaulted ceilings. Halfway up, a colossal church organ hung, suspended impossibly against one wall. The walls themselves were inset with all manner of beautiful stained glass windows that stretched up, spilling soft, multicoloured lights across the cold stone. It was thrilling to walk through such a place, where such profound and meticulous care had been given to the construction of every facet and detail, built over such a span of time as to boggle the modern mind - a project intended for the people of the future, rather than those of the moment. It is hard not to be struck deeply by the sublime beauty of such a place, built on such a grand scale without modern methods and materials, over seven hundred years ago.
The intersection of old and new.
Our minds bleary with fatigue, we exited and walked on. We crossed the Hohenzollern - the famed ‘love bridge,’ with one side weighed down and thick with clusters of locks of every colour and shape and size, each lock a symbol of the love shared between two people, and not a gap in the fencing visible across the entire length of the bridge. The effect was one of rust and silver with, here and there, pops of bright enamel and glinting, antique brass. Onward we walked, through another market and across to the Lindt museum, where we sampled from a thick-flowing chocolate foundation and learned about the manufacture of the chocolate that can be found in every grocery store, from the growing of cocoa beans to the production of the chocolates themselves. The latter we were able to watch in real time, observing machine arms pouring the liquid chocolate into waiting moulds. The museum even boasted a range of artifacts: ancient cocoa drinking vessels and antique wood-and-metal medicinal chocolate dispensers, among other things.
The glorious chocolate fountain.
When our feet were thoroughly spent and our legs weighed down with fatigue, we walked the long walk back to the train station as early darkness descended and the cold began to sharpen its teeth. We returned to Ziggy and found a place at our previous campground, exhausted, underfed and utterly satisfied with our first proper day on the road.
…
Monday was a getting-things-done kind of day, spent ticking the more pertinent and pernicious jobs off the to-do list. The most pressing was finding a way to fill up on water - a task which quickly devolved into the same kind of absurd joke as the Toilet Saga. We began by making our way to a campervan supply shop, where we bought a few things and asked the shop assistant about water stations. He didn’t know whether petrol stations allowed the filling of water tanks, but noted that there was a water filling station for motorhomes just across the road! Finally, we thought - a problem with an easy solution. Yet as we made our way over, it quickly became apparent that the water station was actually another hurdle, cunningly disguised as a solution. You see, the machine only accepted coins. Can you guess the amount needed? That’s right. Fifty cents. There was nothing for it but to get some cash at last. We drove to a nearby shopping centre and Alessandra dropped me off to hunt for a working ATM. Not long after, loaded up with blessed cash money, I met up with Alessandra at Aldi, where we did a grocery shop and exchanged a tenner for a chunk of change. The clattering weight in our pockets had never felt better. Triumphant, we returned to the water station and filled our tank.
Free at last, we made our way to Kreffeld - a small town in which Alessandra’s grandfather lived out much of his life - parking up in a massive, empty stadium car park, and enjoying the fruits of our labour: full water bottles and our first van showers.
The question remains, as it always does at the end of a week on the Road to Grow: what scraps of learning can we pull out of our experiences? This week, they are as follows:
Little snatches of progress, every day, add up remarkably fast.
Overseas travel will inevitably produce unforeseen challenges and problems, and many will only manifest when you run headlong into them. Try to find solutions as best you can, but don’t let the problems define the trip.
Trial runs can help detect problems in a way that gives you a chance to fix them.
Do not rely on Google Maps for toilet facilities.
Always, ALWAYS have a little cash with you.
Drink deep of beauty where you find it, and remember all the wonderful things that human beings are capable of when they dedicate themselves fully to what they value most highly.
As with the church: build patiently with the future in mind - don’t rush for results in the present.
There is more love in the world than you might think.
From the chocolate fountain: taste the sweet things that come your way - but don’t gorge yourself.
If your fiancee needs you to poop in order to poop herself, and you can’t poop? Lie.
