7/7: Safe, but unsound

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Christ, what a day. We hit the road from Trier at 8 this morning, German time, for a 548-kilometer (er, 340-mile) burn across southern Germany to Mittenwald, this tiny hamlet tucked away in the Bavarian Alps.

A couple of hours in, as we navigated the tunnels and narrow river valleys of the upper Black Forest, a blip of German radio news broke through: ". . . blah blah scheigen fergen swaller explosion blerghof London derkaderk doppel-decker bus auf blahgerzwei Russell Square dergblekkerdanke . . ."

Holy crap. We flipped around, and over the next half hour or so, what we gleaned or thought we gleaned from the German gibberish -- neither of us has any working handle on the language -- only instilled in us a deep sense of unease. Did he just say a bus explosion blew the roof off Euston Station? How many bombs went off? Are we hearing anything right? After a bit, we came within radio range of some US military presences, and managed to pick up about 45 minutes of NPR's world service. 30 frustrating minutes of it was the morning business report . . . I think it was just past 5 AM on the East Coast, and the US was still a sleeping giant.

When finally they came around to the top story, the news hit us like . . . well, no simile really conveys how it hit us. The newsreader ticked off the locations of the four bombs, and except for Aldgate, they were each dreadfully familiar. Edgeware Road . . . well, that's a block and a half from where we had stayed and would stay again when we returned from Germany. We generally used Lancaster Gate and Paddington, but if we were to take the Circle Line east, that'd be the stop to use. Russell Square . . . I had just figured out Russell Square was a bit closer to my school than Tottenham Court, and likely less congested. Thinking about using it when we got back. Euston Station . . . Yep, I was just there last Wednesday, taking the long way to class through one of my old neighborhoods. Listening to the report was like watching a series of darts hit close to a bull's eye.

A few kilometers ticked by and the English station blipped out of range. We went, dazed, back into a fog of German technopop punctuated by inscrutable news reports. The details were left to our imaginations, and it was a very long drive in dreary rain.

It's hard to put into words how the attacks have made me feel. (And it seems obvious that they were attacks . . . so much like Madrid.) Disgusted, heartbroken, furious, frustrated, horrified, even more furious: this is how the attacks themselves made me feel. Compounded with a long, wet drive in a foreign land, with almost no access to information and surrounded by people who, if they are at all concerned, are concerned in German, and therefore seem unconcerned -- this all made me, us, feel profoundly far from home. London is our home base in Europe, and the neighborhoods we spent our time in, which had grown familiar and comforting, have just been bombed. And here we are in Mittenwald, a bewildering and isolated town where no one speaks English, in a hotel with no internet access and a single television monopolized by fat, drinking, dour Bavarians who want to watch talk shows. It is stunningly beautiful here, of course, and we couldn't be any safer. But . . . we feel safe but lost, shocked, and alone. Good job done, you terrorist bastards.

At 5 this evening we found an internet cafe in Garmisch and were able to email folks at home that we are safe, no doubt preempting the west coasters from even getting time to worry, and we were able to read a few early accounts of the attacks from BBC. They did little to diminish the horror.

What a day, what a day. Our hearts go out to London.

The pictures accompanying this post are of Mittenwald. Yay.

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Photos

The Karwendel
Upon arrival, as we walked across a supermarket parking lot, I pointed out some scenery to Ashley.
"It's very pretty," she said in the voice normally reserved for things like "I'm dying of thirst." Yes, not a day for scenery.

Mittenwald and the Karwendel IV
The Karwendel, by the way, is that bigass mountain range behind Mittenwald.
These pics were taken from our room's balcony. It's pretty but, yeah.