MY BOGGY BLOG: find your way through the murk

Border Crossings Gone Bad, and Bach

It is hard to believe that our 5 week trip will be ending soon-- 3 more day to enjoy ourselves, and then we leave on Thursday. D had begun the trip by having a hard time adjusting to the new environment, wishing he could go back home, and just this morning he was bemoaning having to leave. He likes it here now! Of course, part of his not wanting to leave is the fact that school will start 5 days after we get home, and he is starting middle school-- same building as his elementary school, but a whole new world.

We just got back last night from our last little mini-trip: we left Thursday morning for Prague, where we stayed one night, and then from there went to Leipzig, where the kids have been eagerly anticipating the World Games Convention, supposedly the 2nd largest video gaming convention in the world. Not my thing, but when L discovered it would coincide with our trip and it wouldn't be that far away, we thought we'd go. So the kids have been chanting Leipzig, Leipzig at various times throughout the trip, and it was probably the thought of it that got them through some of my b-o-r-i-n-g (to them) museums.

But first, Prague. We tried to get going early, knowing that we weren't planning much time for this great city. We have been hearing all along from people that they LOVE Prague, that if there was any city they wanted to go back to, it was Prague, that Prague was a must see. Before we left Neumarkt, we stopped in town for cash, some rolls and coffee to eat in the car, and then of course, we stopped when the polizei pulled us over as we were leaving town. Urgh, B had just been following cars and keeping up with them, but apparently, he was going 70 in a 50 kmh zone. That is one of the things about driving in a foreign country-- it takes a long time to get to know what all the rules are and how to figure out the road signs. The officer let us pay 35 euros cash on the spot, instead of the usual going to the courthouse and whatever their ritual is, but he said that it is usually 50 euros. It was hard to know if he was being nice to us or not. But we paid up and were on our way.

About an hour later, we realized that we hadn't thought about bringing our passports along. So far, we had only needed them one time, and that was at a hostel in Munich weeks ago where they wanted our passport info. But we had them with us last week when we went to France and there, the borders are open and you don't even stop going through-- just like going to Wisconsin! So we had totally got out of the mind-frame of thinking about passports. Urgh. We discovered that we actually did have four of our passports-- some of us just carried them in our neck-wallets with our cash, but our daughter despised the neck wallet because she is a teen and it makes her look lumpy under her shirt, so hers was lying on the floor in her Neumarkt room.

So here we were, less than an hour from the border-- do we go back, or do we just continue onward and see if the Czech border is any big deal? We decided to go forward and see. The worst they could do was turn us away, and then we'd have to go back, maybe cancel the Prague part of our trip.

At the border, the Czech border patrol looked at our passports, looked at G's school ID (the only thing we had at the time), and then shrugged his shoulders. He said he would let us in, but he said he didn't know how the Czech police would react when we wanted to return to Germany (I'm not sure why he said Czech, because when we return to Germany, it is the German border patrol). We asked what might happen, and he said they might fine us 40 euros. Well, that was a fine we'd be willing to pay. He said we could take our chances, but he didn't indicate anything worse than that. So we happily, gullibly rode on into the Czech Republic, blissfully unaware...

From there it was about 2 hours to Prague, and we enjoyed the rolling hills and farmland. We got to Prague, and really, this is always the worst part of a little trip-- arriving in a new city where you don't know how to get to your hotel, and you have no understanding of how the city is put together. We drove around lost for about an hour, stopped to get directions, the stress level high because the streets are always twisted and hard to follow in these old European cities, and traffic is always bad. After stopping twice for directions (and we know absolutely NO words in Czech-- I tried to look some up on B's internet phone while he drove, and even please and thank you are very complex and unpronounceable), we found our hotel. Actually, it is an apartment building that rents out rooms for short or long terms-- there were a lot of these on the hostel websites I searched. So, for 70 euros we had a lovely and brand new apartment to stay in-- beds for 5, kitchen, bathroom, TV, very shiny bathroom.

It was now about 3:30 pm and we'd only eaten some rolls and car snacks all day, so we walked a few blocks to where all the restaurants are. We learned that in the C.R., they most commonly still use their own money, the krown, which has a rate of about 30 krowns to 1 euro. Some places will take euros, but not as many as you would think. So we ate at a nice little Czech restaurant, which had prices of 150 K for a plate of food, which was only like 5 euros. I had a delicious dish called Chicken Amadeaus, which was bits of chicken, shrimp and mushrooms in a creamy curried sacue. Everyone enjoyed their food.

Then we went down the street to the metro, where B once again figured out how to get around. We went across the River to Wenceslas Square, a beautiful old part of the city. None of the city was bombed during the war, so Prague stands as a memorial to old European architecture, and it is just gorgeous to walk from building to building, each ornate in its own way. This old square was very interesting-- a place for people to gather and walk and eat and shop. We learned quickly that you need to be very careful while crossing streets in Prague-- pedestrians are not sacred in the least, and cars speed recklessly. I remembered reading about this when, over a year ago, we had researched living in the C.R. when B had had the possibility of getting a job here. One book we read said that crossing the street on foot is always taking your life in your hands. It really was. I always waited for some other pedestrian to start crossing before I did, hoping they knew what they were doing.

I'm sorry to report that we really didn't see much of Prague at all. We wandered, ate cheap ice cream, looked at buildings, rested, really didn't have any particular sight-seeing destinations at all. All I wanted to get was a taste of Prague, to see what it was like. Now that we'd been traveling for a month, we were tired of sight-seeing and had lost our drive. So I'm sure we missed the best parts of this great city. We'll have to return some day, with more energy!

The next morning, we got up and shopped around a nearby mall with an underground free parking garage, where our car had been parked all night. I discovered a grocery store in the mall that took Visa, so I had fun stocking up our car snacks. This was a pretty big store, much bigger by several times any grocery store I'd seen in Germany, and the food was all cheap. I spent 250 K, which was something like 10 euros.

After the hell of driving out of the city (almost as bad as arriving-- it took about an hour to find the freeway, it is so confusing), we were on our way across the lovely Czech landscape. It was only marred as we neared the border by a sad little town which looked worn and beaten down, with a plethora of sex shops. B suggested that it is near the border, so maybe people cross the border to have some of their less healthy needs met. There were prostitutes standing along the roadside, in front of shops, young girls looking come-hither at the traffic. Shudder!

Now we were at the border, hoping that it would go pretty smoothly. At our hotel, B had had the clerk print off a webpage he'd created before we left America, where he'd scanned in copies of each of our passports. So now we had a photocopy of G's passport, with her photo and everything. We hoped this would suffice.

Dear Reader, it did not suffice! It was about 1:30 when we reached the border, and we got in the liine of cars and the German office looked at our passports and told us to pull into a parking spot at the side. There we waited about 10 minutes, since they were busy with long lines of cars wanting to go to Germany. We hoped for the 40 euro fine. But a non-English-speaking guard eventually stomped over to our car, handed us our passports and told us firmly that we were denied and we would have to go back to the American Embassy in Prague, and we might get a passport in a few days. ACK! There was no reasoning with this guard, and B shakily turned the car around and we went about a mile to the nearest gas station.

At the gas station, we found that we had phone connection but no internet connection, so we were limited on what we could do. I tore through my Germany guidebook, looking for any trouble-shooting information. I did uncover the phone number for the American Embassy in Germany (we didn't know how to find the one for Prague), and B called and explained our situation. A nice clerk or ambassador, not sure what she was, helped us out. B gave her the URL for the passport photocopy, and she was able to look it us. What followed was 2 hours of hell, with B on the phone to her, trying to see what she could do, and then us going back to the border police and B trying to talk to them, trying to get their phone number so our Embassy helper could talk to them. It was an awful, anxious 2 hours, envisioning being stuck in Prague, the kids missing out on their Leipzig trip they'd looked so forward to.

While waiting, I came up with the idea that B could take the boys across the border and back to Neumarkt for the passport, and I could wait with G. I'd forgotten that because we were on the way to Leipzig, we were far north of our previous crossing, so it would take him about 4 hours to get back to Neumarkt, so G and I might have to stay in a hotel for 8 hours waiting for him. Ugh. Meanwhile, he was talking to guards, talking to the Embassy, and eventually, he and I and G went inside (we thought it would be good to have the innocent 15 year old standing there with us, so they could see that she was harmless) to wait at the office window. The police agreed to receive a fax of the passport info-- we don't know if they thougth the embassy actually had the passport or what, we didn't care, we just wanted it to work out. The fax turned out to be sufficient and the police agreed to issue a new, temporary passport. For 25 euros. Yay! We panicked a moment when they said they needed a photo-- we had no photos! All our photos were digital! But then I remembered I had the kids' school photos in my daytimer, and a school photo was fine. Phew!

We got the passport, got back in the car, got back in line for the border. When we reached the guard and handed over the passports (again), he indicated we needed to go park in one of the spots (again). Darn, we thought we were clear! The guards in the office had just given us this passport! Could they deny us now, after all this? Were they just toying with us?

We waited 10 more minutes, long anxious minutes, awful minutes. And then a perky young patrol came up and smiled and said we were okay to go. We didn't breathe until we crossed the border at last. We were back in Germany!!

A half an hour later, we were waiting on the road in a long line of cars for some road construction, and all of a sudden B felt his car door open. He nearly screamed, thinking "ack, the border patrol is telling us to turn around!" But it was an old German man telling us to turn on our headlights in German. Apparently it is a law in this area, and he didn't want us getting a ticket. Very nice of him, but we locked the doors after that!

It took about 2 1/2 more hours to get to...

LEIPZIG

We arrived in Leipzig about 6 pm, and then had the usual driving-around-crazy-time-finding-the-hotel time. We eventually got to the Renaissance Hotel Leipzig, which is the 5-star hotel we would stay in for Friday and Saturday nights. If you've been reading this blog all along, then you'll know that we usually do not stay in 5-star hotels; usual for us is a hostel with bunk beds and very plainly furnished. But we hadn't realized just how big this World Game Convention is for the town of Leipzig, so we had failed to start looking for hotels for our stay until, um. like last Monday? And so we were finding that everything and anything was booked, from hostels to hotels. We were told the whole town was booked and that we'd have to stay in the next town of Halle, which was 30 km away. B ended up calling the website www.hotels.de to see if they could be any help, and actually they were very helpful. They easily found us a hotel in town-- a much nicer hotel that really wasn't that outrageously priced. We've stayed in hostels that ran us $150 a night for our family of 5, and we ended up paying a total of 395 euros for two nights. And it was many steps above a hostel in accomadations and service!

The beddings was very soft and cushy, the bottles of soaps and shampoos wonderfully scented, there were 2 TVs, the desk staff very attentive, and the breakfast buffet was fancy. I ended up being very very glad to have such a nice hotel to stay in, because as I've mentioned before, attending the World Gaming Convention was really not my thing. I wanted to see what it was like, but I really didn't plan to stay there as long as B and the kids. So having a nice place to lounge around suited me just fine.

We got into our rooms and then headed out to find the convention. It turned out we were not near, about 10 km away, but there was a tram that took us straight to the Messegelande, the convention center. It was a 30 minute ride, but we didn't have to switch trams, so it was okay. Unfortunately, we thought that the convention would be running late all weekend, but it turns out it ended at 6 pm Friday, reopening at 9 am on Saturday. Poor L had to wait another day to experience the convention! We went back to the hauptbanhof (tram/train station) which had a shopping mall above it, and we found a pizza place and got some dinner. By now it was about 8 pm and this was our first real meal of the day! We had had croissants in the Czech Republic in the morning and car snacks along the way (lost our appetites for awhile at the border), but not that much. After dinner, we went to the hotel and collapsed in 5-star glory!

The next day we all got up early to get to the convention center when it opened. We knew L and G would go off on their own-- L plays an online game called Guild Wars that was having their world championship matches at the convention, so he was going to be spending his time there. D would at least stick with B and I for awhile. We had no idea what to expect of this thing.

The Messagelande is huge-- It has a central area that is a long half-dome of rounded glass, where people enter and can eat at small food stands and sit at tables. Then there are four enormous halls in which to see various video game stuff, 2 on each side of the main area. It is reported that 186,000 people attended-- it was very crowded, mostly with teen boys and 20-somethings in t-shirts, some people in costumes but most people not. I followed B and D into one of the halls, and it was Really So Not My Thing. I hadn't thought it would be, but I was curious. Imagine a huge hall filled with large and small screens, colorful displays, flashing lights and loud music, different music as you walk from display to display. They would have a huge circle of bright cushions on the floor with hand-held game devices like Game Boys wired to a central station, so people could just sit on cushions and play. They had stand up video arcade style games, stages with emcees leading shows. They had a family hall that had games for younger kids, too young for D, though that at least was a much quieter area. And most of all it was people everywhere, people pushing and nudging from all sides, people crowding.

B eventually went off on his own and I stuck with D for about an hour, and then I could see that it was pointless for me to hang around. He is young but I knew he could find some entertainment on his own, without us having to stick together in the crowd. So I showed him where I'd be sitting, down at the tables in the main hall, and then let him go. I did feel a bit of apprehension-- it is such a big place I didn't know if I could find him again. But he knew where he could find me if he got upset.

So I sat in this crowded hall, found a table and wrote in my journal while video nerds smoked around me (yes, they can smoke everywhere here). At noon, we had set up a meeting spot for the family, knowing that not everyone would show up for it-- they don't have watches and I knew they would just be sucked into the environment and forget time. But I found B and G there, and G, like me, was ready to go back to the hotel. B would stay and look for the boys. We knew he's eventually find them at 8 pm when the convention closed. So G and I rode the tram back, shopped and had lunch in the train station mall, and then went back to the hotel. We watched bad German TV (at least they had MTV to entertain us-- I haven't seen videos in ages), read our books (I'm half way through WICKED right now), wrote in my journal, relaxing stuff like that.

B and D came back late in the afternoon, B having found D, who was tired enough to want to go back to the hotel. L was still out there, somewhere, and we thought he could find his way back to the hotel if he needed to. B planned to go back to the Messegalande when the convention ended at 8 pm, so stand outside and see if he came out. He did that, but L ended up showing up at the hotel at about 8:45, having left and missed B. I was able to call B on the cell phone, so that worked. We met him at the hauptbanhof and ate dinner at the mall.

The next day, G and I were just going to stay at the hotel. We had arranged a late check out at 3 pm, so B, D and L would go to their convention, D and L staying until it closed at 6 pm. B would come back and help us check out of the hotel, and then we would drive around and find something to do in Leipzig until the convention was over. So G and I had a nice morning, swimming in the hotel pool, sitting in the lukewarm whirlpool, and then using the sauna by the pool. Now, I had heard that Germans are less inhibited about nudity, and that there are German baths and saunas where everyone goes nude. But we were in this fancy hotel and I didn't think about being nude in a communal sauna just around the corner from the front reception desk! So G and I were enjoying the warmth when a tall, dark-haired, good-looking and completely unclothed fellow joined us in the sauna! We were in our suits, of course, as we prudish American girls like to be, and he started upon seeing us there, suited, and him standing there, unsuited, but he just sat down and we all tried to be as casual about it as we could.

It didn't help that he was sitting right by the door, so I kept thinking, 'we'll just stay until he leaves, stay until he leaves," but he didn't leave and I was getting hot. So, very casually, we got up and walked by him, averting our eyes. Okay, lived through that!

That's the thing about being in a foreign country-- you really feel like you just don't know what you are doing half the time. Are people really staring at you, or are you just paranoid?

B came back and we checked out of our nice 5 star hotel, so easy to appreciate after all our 1 star accomodations along the way! And then we drove to a marktplatz nearby to walk around and spend some time. I wanted to see the Goethe statue. We ended up wandering into the Thomaskirche (St. Thomas Church), where Bach is buried. It's a beautiful old church, and I was thrilled to find the Bach grave-- his remains are in front of the main altar, underneath a bronze plaque with his name. How sweet-- several people had left roses on the plaque, a touching gesture. You can also see the organ he played in this church.

We had lunch at a nice little sidewalk cafe that didn't even have sausages on the menu, and the three of us had a lovely time. We walked around the market area, found Goethe's statue--the writer had been a student in Leipzig long ago. We heard a street musician, a steel guitar player, during our lunch and he was very good-- played the Beatles, the Bee Gees, many American melodies.

After this, we drove to the Messagelande and held our breath as B went to look for the boys. Yay, the convention was over and they were waiting right at the meeting spot. All tht was left now was to find some fast food to eat in the car and start the trip home from Leipzig. We didn't get back to Neumarkt until 10 after a very long, stressful drive. The roads were busy and there was lots of road construction. B says the autobahn keeps you awake while you drive-- it's the constant surge of adrenalin as cars race by.

Now we're down to our last few days of the trip. Time for cleaning up the G's house, maybe driving around Nurnberg some more, visiting with the people we've met here. It's hard to believe we'll be home by Thursday night!

And we're going to remember to carry those passports! Really!

Posted by sapphire at August 28, 2006 03:15 AM