Okay, maybe it's bad taste to go there, but I don't really think we ought to be encourage Germany to find a solution to an unwanted population. I'm. I'm just sayin'. Also, I shouldn't need to point out the humor of a potential tourist saying they won't travel to Germany since it is full of non-Germans.
It made me think about some of the people I've met this trip. I've stayed with a Portuguese family in Luxembourg with rising-football-star sons in Brazil. I've met Mexicans in Italy studying design who happened to be from the same town but never met until the three of us ended up in the same apartment. I met Japanese folks living in Italy who were huge fans of a rather obscure J-rock group with whom my American friend was BFFs. I've met some amazing people which made me think this, "keep Germany for Germans" or other flavors of xenophobia, is not just primarily embarrassing but just wasteful.
And, none of the "real Germans" I talked to shared this attitude. There is some sort of link between people who SAY they want to travel vs people who do and boring racism. I'm sure a lot of people in Germany and other countries feel this way, but the people I stayed with were the kid who open their homes or like talking to travelers. There may be some bias in my sample.
Three cool people I met I don't want to forget.
Tax consultant who hid in a bakery
I found myself at The Least Promising bus stop I've been to in awhile.
After a few minutes, another guy shows up and asks me, in French, where I am going. I understand enough via context and that look of WTF to respond in English. He switches over and thus begins a five-hour conversation with one of the most interesting people I've meet.
Not as cool as The Most Interesting Man Ever, though. I met him in Taiwan and sometimes think deleting his number and not quitting my job to travel with him when I had the invite was a lamentable decision...
Names are exchanged and histories are briefly recounted. English is his third language--and you know how I feel about polyglots--so I let him do most of the talking. (When I get started, I talk really fast.) He grew up in Albania during the war. His father owned a bakery in the small town and was one of the first people to settle there. My acquaintance and his brother started working when they were ten and eight, respectively, carrying stuff for people at the markets after school and on the weekends. When the war moved into their area, the militia wouldn't let anyone leave. They tried to flee but were forced back before they even got out of the town much less country. One day they came home to the body of their neighbor, an old man, shot in the head in their garden. That night, Dad made the family sleep in his bakery next-door instead of at home. The militia came to their house in the night. Finding no one home, the militia burnt their house down. This was a good thing, my new acquaintance told me, because they had no stuff to carry when they walked out of town the next day. The militia believed them when Dad said they were just visiting friends in the countryside. So they walked with nothing from Albania to Italy and got a train from Italy to France. From there, my acquaintance learned French, did excellent in school, and was encouraged to go into tax law by professors in uni because he had a good head for numbers and memorization.
It's the classic story people hold up when they talk about refugee rights. Here's a family that faced death if they sayed, but just given a chance, what a fantastic success.
Number Seven on the Coolest Lady Ever list
Lighter story! I'm walking around Rothenburg on a Monday in the middle of January. For the most part, aside from a gaggle of tourists who spent thirty minutes bounding down Main Street snapping selfies before rebranding the bus, the town is empty. (I did spend an hour in a tablecloth shop talking about how, according to her, most of the shop owners don't get the Asian tourists. They don't dislike them, even though the stereotype of Chinese being "all elbows" was offered, but they don't understand. Apparently there is a five-cities-in-three days tour a lot of Chinese and Koreans do in Germany.) the town is dead after eleven when the last bus leaves. Most shops/restaurants say on the door they are closed until March. I'm not a big shopper, but I want to get something for my friends' wedding I missed (didn't know how to mark the possessive on that. She's my friend but I've met him a few times now and he seems cool... Social niceties need to be more defined.) and my dad.
My point. I'm getting there.
Anyway, one of the shops open is run by a mother-son team who seem to live above the shop, a dream of mine. (Having a shop under my lodgings. Not the son.) I'm looking about and touching things while the son, about 45, and I make small talk. I comment on his "don't mess with Texas" sticker near the register and he proudly says his mom got that. She used to ride a bike in America. Oh, that's cool.
I. I misunderstood.
I make my purchase and listen as he explains that he is friends with Rick Stevens--"do you know Rick Stevens?"--
Rick Steeves is a bloody giant!
and tells me more about his shop as mom, looking to be 90, comes downstairs rocking a Harley Davidson shirt.
Conversation begins. An hour later I have been told about the merits of different highways and interstates in America by a woman who has ridden most of the continental U.S. on a Panhead, lived in Egypt in the 70s and mastered the local Arabic, and her husband worked in dams around the world. She had a book of dams and showed me pictures of her husband with his crew in Kingman, Arizona and all over Australia.
Also, and this is something I want to mention, she had surgery last year 'cause she dropped her Panhead and needed surgery on her crushed arm. "Oh, sometimes I forget how heavy American bikes are. Silly of me." She still rides! She's one of the people you meet and aspire to be.
With the map she drew.
A new Catch-22
I'm at a sketchy bus stop, I do that a lot these days, and a guy asks me if I am heading to Frankfurt. I affirm I am and, as is customary, The Conversation (where you from/where are you going/what to do go) flows.
"So, what do you do?" I ask. A logical question to ask a smartly dressed chap about 25-30.
"Ah, I, uh. I don't work. (A pause) I'm studying."
"Cool. What?"
"German."
"So what sends you Frankfurt?"
And then there is the pause of a person deciding to lie to tell the truth. "Actually, I live in a, what do you call it, a refugee hotel? I'm from Zaire. Some of my family came over a few years ago and I am going to visit them."
So, my new acquaintance and I spend the next two hours chatting and at one point he proceeds to explain the current situation with job hunting as a refugee in Germany. Legally, he is allowed to work with the papers he has, and he speaks near perfect German, French, English, and several dialects from his home town. (And you know how I feel about polyglots).
But...
"It's the time. I live in the refugee camp still. Every time I find a job and apply I never get it. I don't think it is discrimination (I had inquired). It's the time. When I apply for a job, the person hiring me has to confirm who I am. This means they have to send papers to the camp, but the camp takes two, three, four weeks to respond. No one wants to wait four weeks to hire someone when they need someone now. I can't get a job until I leave the camp, but I can't leave the camp until I have a job."
Of course.
Nothing new. We've heard it before.
Sure, I've walked areas of certain towns and have seen the problems Europe is having. There are a LOT of panhandlers, a lot of guys trying to get you to buy selfie sticks or umbrellas, and I don't care what your race is, when I see a group of young men around twenty standing about noisily on a street at night, as a single chick, I am wary. And there have been a lot of incidents involving newer arrivals and the local population, alluding here to Cologne and other attacks, but when you meet so many amazing people (even after getting harassed pretty strongly by some guys you start to think aren't going to take "no" as an answer), you can't help but see the situation as more complex than anyone in the media seems to suggest.
Here's a picture of me stuffing my face. This one of the best things I've ever consumed. You don't even know.
----
Ps.
Try being asked to explain how a racist, mysoginistic, bigoted loser who was a joke to made made fun on SNL, The Simpsons, and just about every other comedy show for years is a presidential candidate. Over and over and over. Yeah. The guy who became mostly famous in America by being a dick on a ridiculous reality show and building "towers" that are tacky even in Vegas is in the running. He's a dick. He's an unqualified, emotional windbag. Kudos, America. Everyone is judging us.
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