Tale of the Rucksack

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It is pretty hard to find internet in rural Germany, so it has taken me a while to post this.

I was walking along the R1 bicycle route, which goes from Riga on the Baltic Sea all the way to Antwerp on the North Sea. I had not seen anyone for hours, just myself, the forest, the birds, and the last few chapters of Catch 22. I saw some buildings off the path, and I proceeded to unshoulder my pack and looked at the buildings. It was a former Russian Army base, with colossal tank garages and decrepit barrack buildings. What drew my eye was a bit of cyrillic graffitti. The words were crudely scratched into the whitewash. I could not read any of it, but it ended with a cryptic, large 1990. The year the Russians left East Germany.

Let me pause for a moment to point out that the Russian withdrawl from Eastern Europe is an abberation of military history. Armies are thoughtless, brutish institutions. Advancing with waves of blood and, rarely ever retreating without being driven out. It defied Clauswitz and Grand Strategy thinking to have a power, which had since Peter the Great constantly expanded, never giving up its possesions, unilaterally withdraw from Eastern Europe. I was in the revery of these thoughts when I heard the misplaced sound of tires. I explored the tank garages, enthralled by the tangible symbols of before my eyes. A culture of barbed wire and tanks, with hues of grey concrete and whitewash, replaced by a culture of vibrant spraypaint, squatters, and parties around campfires that lasted until dawn. The cartoon spraypaint mocking the solemnity of the Soviet system. I returned to the path, thinking this was the reason for my travels, to see with my own eyes the reality behind the tides of history.

My backpack was gone. In disbelief I walked stupidly up and down, past the place I had left it. I was stunned. How? Why? The sound of tires came back to me.

I was in a state of disbelief and self incrimination. Who in the hell was driving on the bike path? What heartless thieves would steal from a backpacker? I shrugged and walked on down the road. There was nothing inside of value to the thieves. No money, credit cards or passport. Nothing essential to my travels that was irreplaceable. I resolved to finish my walk across Germany.

As I walked down the road I acustomed myself to this new itinerary. Now I was walking with one set of clothes, a wallet and an Ipod with no way to recharge it. I had designed it such that everything in my backpack was not essential, but the abrupt loss of all my nonessentals added up to the premature death of my travels.

I picutured wild eyed thieves ransacking my bag, Tolkinesque goblins, hopping around in a demonic frenzy. These were my thoughts as I walked down the road, oddly light without the weight of my pack.

Meanwhile...

Hans dissassembled the green Rucksack with clinical efficiency. Nothing escaped his scrutiny or appraisal. He felt delighted by the control with which he carefully recorded each possesion. He found a journal, and had it translated. The english worried him. He found an ID card, and his anxiety increased. An American tourist. How hot was this stuff?

He had to find this American. The manhunt began. Helicopters searched the forest where the bag was found. Dogs were given the scent of dirty underware from the bag and set to search the ruins of the old Russian barracks and decrepit World War II bunkers in the area for the lost and probably gravely injured tourist. Hans worried of an 'international incidedent.'

My devious move, which totally baffelled politzei efforts to locate me, was to walk into town and check into a hotel (one of only two in town) less than three blocks from the police station of the august hamlet of Beelitz.

Two days later they found me, walking along the road, and contemplating the difficulty of washing one set of clothes in public laundrymats.

They brought me back to Beelitz. I was sad to get in a car, I had thusfar had my feet take me everywhere since I got to Germany, but thought it would be rude to refuse the ride and I certainly wanted my things back. In the end, they returned everything and dropped me off most of the way back to where I had been before. The police stopped at a bakery, as close to a dognut shop as you could find here. I guess somethings are universal.

I don't know what the moral of the story is, I am sorry for the trouble I caused, but they shouldn't have taken my bag. I was within earshot the whole time, and if they would have said something instead of snatching it, none of it would have happened.

So, that's my latest adventure in Germany.

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