Rotterdam - Berlin July 31 2010

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Hans is looking seriously. He is the barkeeper of cafe-restaurant Zadkini in Rotterdam. Actually Hans always looks seriously, but this morning he is looking more seriously than ever. As if he is fully aware of our first steps we are going to put on a 30,000 miles long road. We just closed the door of our apartment just above his restaurant. Forever. We sold our car, stored our books, gave the washingmaschine away, put the workingdesk in the bin and our bike was stolen. The road is our home now.

While we walk to the Central station we see the skyscrapers towering above us. We loved to live here. The once bombed city turned out to become one of the most exciting cities of the Netherlands. While we leave, Rotterdam is preparing itself for its annual summercarnaval. But we will not see it anymore. We are heading for that other city that was bombed in the second worldwar. Berlin.

I look out of the window of the train and see the meadows passing by, flat as the Dutch landscape is. I see the cows and I remember that my father told me to call them monkeys. I was 4 years or so. The next time I was in the train I saw the black and white animals again and enthusiastically I shouted pointing to them: "Look Pa, monkeys!" I still remember how the people around us looked at me in disbelief. I could see in their eyes something was wrong with me: this boy needs help.
In Amersfoort we change to the international train to Berlin. A lot of youngsters, all with colourfull suitcases. We are the only ones with rucksacks. Are we outdated? No, I see another rucksack. I am curious who the owner is. Is it the young blond girl sitting two couches further on or is one of the four Italians next to me the owner? In Hengelo a woman pulls the rucksack out of the rack and leaves. I guess she is my age: 62.

After about two hours we pass the border and the yourney across the monotonous German landscape starts. I am not familiar with Germany, though it is our neighbour. In the past it was not done to travel to Germany. First of all because it was Germany and secondly because there lived Germans who spoke German. While I think this over, I fall asleep. I dream about my childhood, when we were during summerholidays on the beach of Zandvoort, a little village near Amsterdam. I see the big castles the Germans used to dig out of the sand. With shells they wrote the names of their cities in the sand: "Hamburg, Essen, Stuttgart", as if they still wanted to occupy our country. That was in the fifties of the last century, when the Dutch were still sensitive because of the war. The Germans were working all day on their sandcastles and finally they were that huge, that you hardly could imagine they would ever vanish. At least that was what the Germans thought. We knew how hard the Dutch elements could be: wind, water and most of all us kids could in one night destroy what had been built up during the day by German hands. I see their astonished faces when they arrive at their eternal castles the day after.
"Hannover", a loud voice calls out and I awake with a shock. Through the window I see the station of Hannover. Nowadays things have changed. Germany and Holland are good neighbours and the Germans are the niciest people you can meet.
At 6pm we arrive in Berlin. Our hotel is near the Gedaechtniskirche, a remnant of the second worldwar. After the bombing in 1943 the church was destroyed. Now the ruine is a memorial. It looks like one of the sandcastles in Zandvoort after one night of Dutch elements. It is sad and impressive. How can we forget?

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