asides

The River Surfers Of München

Posted on July 20, 2013 by Mike

The Eisbach – German for “ice brook” –  lazily snakes its way through one of the largest city parks in the world. The English Garden, as the park is known, draws locals and visitors by the thousands each day. In Munich, one of Germany’s best cities for just about everything, the park gets used in every season. It is a source of pride, much like New York City’s Central Park, except much larger. In summer, the English Garden is where everybody in Munich goes at some time or another. Every kind of activity imaginable happens there, including nude sunbathing near the Eisbach. But at the mouth of this artificial stream, one activity has been drawing more and more tourists, forcing the local government to end its prohibition: surfing.

On any given day in summer, dozens of surfers can be found at the mouth of the Eisbach, where just under a bridge a water-pumping system produces very strong waves perfect for surfing. For more than 40 years, surfers have been flocking to the spot to put their balancing skills to the test, to the chagrin of local officials who had threatened to destroy the waves, leading residents to protest and start a “save the waves” campaign. It wasn’t until 2010 – after noticing that the surfers were a big draw for tourism, that officials removed the ban on surfing, even if the ban was never really enforced. From the bridge and from the banks of the Eisbach, tourists can be seen snapping photographs while the surfers ham it up.

I’m not a surfer and I didn’t know anything about this river surfing in Munich until I got to the city and locals told me about it. They said if there’s one thing you should do in Munich, is head for the park and see the showboating surfer dudes and dudettes. I went and I was not disappointed. I even shot some video (above). The photos are also pretty cool, if I may say so myself. 🙂

Anyway, Munich bustles with activity when summer comes. So much to the city beyond what goes on in and around Marienplatz. Just ask a local – connect with one – and you will find yourself at a free outdoor concert on “the beach”. Or eating curried German sausages where the locals eat. And seeing the city in a way you normally would not see. So go on and check out the surfers if you get to Munich during the warm weather months. Cowabunga! (sorry, I had to say it 🙂

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A Proper Treatment For Lech Walesa, Anyone?

Posted on June 9, 2013 by Mike
Lech Wałęsa

Lech Wałęsa

The Jasna Góra Monastery holds in almost equal proportion ancient treasures and treasured modern-era items. Its collection ranges from religious relics to pieces that tell Poland’s more recent history. Chief among the priceless items is the iconic Black Madonna of Częstochowa. To be sure, that Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus is the monastery’s top draw by far. After visitors have bowed and spent the proper amount of time on bent knees in reverence to her, they largely spend the rest of their time at the 631-year-old monastery exploring its riches housed throughout the grounds and in several wings. Once I was done trying to catch a glimpse of the Madonna, I headed over to the armory, which displays a variety of medieval weapons and suits of armor, in addition to more items that detail key events in Poland‘s recent history. As I looked at items enclosed in glass displays, I was very surprised to come across one particular item – Lech Walesa‘s 1983 Nobel Peace Prize. How could this be? Was it the real thing? At first there was some doubt because in my mind there was no way Walesa’s Nobel Peace Price be given such short shrift, such a careless treatment. The gold medal and accompanying certificate were in a glass case, and thank goodness for that, but displayed haphazardly, squeezed into a nondescript corner with a few other seemingly unrelated items. It was as if the award was meaningless; given less prominence than it deserved. I’ve seen high school trophies given better treatment than Walesa’s Nobel Peace Price.

So what is going on here? Is this how you treat the world’s grandest Peace Price earned by a native son and leader of the movement that toppled a repressive government and led to the collapse of other Communist governments across Central and Eastern Europe, like falling dominoes?

After shipyard workers in Gdansk challenged Poland’s Communist government and in essence the entire Soviet Bloc, the Berlin Wall fell and East Germany ceased to exist. But months before, Poland had been freed of tyranny, though most people erroneously point to Berlin as the beginning of the end of the Soviet Bloc and the Warsaw Pact.

Walesa’s Nobel Peace Price is something I would expect to see prominently displayed in a proper museum, alongside other items of the Solidarity movement. Instead, a visitor is surprised to find the actual Nobel Peace Price in the monastery, which Walesa – who is said to deeply value his Catholic upbringing – donated to the church. But do people around the world – for that matter, people in Poland – even know that the award is in the monastery? Perhaps the Catholic Church shouldn’t be in the museum business, if that’s not the case. And maybe I’m  making too much of this. Or maybe the church is making too little of it. Or maybe the church simply needs a proper curator.

I say, let’s give Walesa’s place in history its proper due and put that Nobel Peace Price somewhere center stage, handled in a proper exhibit, in a museum that is fitting of his achievement. How about it? Anyone?

A wing of the monastery, shot from the bell tower

A wing of the monastery I shot from the top of the bell tower

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First Hitchhike Ever In Europe: Warsaw To Gdansk

Posted on December 12, 2012 by Mike

On the road again...

The morning started with snowflakes dancing in the frozen air. It wasn’t the kind of day anyone in his or her right mind would pick to stand on a busy intersection with a weather-wilting cardboard sign to thumb a ride from a passing stranger. Earlier this year I had hitchhiked rides across South America – mainly in Argentina – but then it was summer and the weather was better. Nevertheless, I decided to cement my “roughing it” traveler cred – as in credibility – by attempting to hitch a ride from Warsaw to Gdansk, Poland. By car, the trip usually takes about 5 hours. I hoped to complete the journey close to that time. It wasn’t to be.

The night before, I had slept in the Praga section of Warsaw. It would take a tram, a subway train and a bus to reach the ideal spot at the edge of town to hitchhike north. That trip took more than an hour. Once at the spot, I was entered a McDonald’s to gather my thoughts and strategy. Should I wave my cardboard sign? Should I dance? Should I flash smiles or appear serious? Should I wave? Or should I just stick out my thumb and hope that was enough to have someone stop? I tried all those for the more than two hours I was standing there (the dancing was more to keep warm). My fingers and toes frozen solid, I decided to seek refuge in the McDonald’s. After I thawed out, it was back on, but this time I shifted to a new location  closer to the McDonald’s. Within minutes, an older gentleman pulled up, rolled his window down and said he was going in the direction of Gdansk, but only as far as his hometown Mława, a town in the north-central part of Poland, and scene of a reported massacre of thousands of Jews between 1939 and 1945 at the hands of German soldiers and Polish sympathizers. 

He said his name was Andre and that he was a carpenter and part-time shoe salesman. His car was full of shoe boxes right to the roof. The Audi was so loaded with shoe boxes that I could not get my backpack in the backseat. So Andre got out and help me shove it into the trunk where he had more boxes. At first the trunk wouldn’t close, so we had to give the backpack a few more shoves to make it fit, crushing some shoe boxes – and shoes – in the process. Then we were off. During the more than two-hour trip between Warsaw and Mława, Andre and I tried to communicate, with very little success. He spoke no English and I spoke no Polish. And the only other language he spoke “a little” was German. So for most of the trip we traveled in silence. But he was a nice old guy, about 65 years old. When he stopped at a gas station to buy some windshield washer fluid, he surprised me with a cup of coffee. He said – or at least what I understood him to say – is that I looked cold standing on the road.

As we traveled, he pointed things such as restaurants and sites along the way. And how many more kilometers were left to travel. Once we made it to Mława, he dropped me off at a gas station on the road, we shook hands and he smiled and said goodbye. I thanked him and went inside to use the restroom. Soon as I emerged, I walked up to a man pumping gas and asked if he was heading north to Gdansk. He said he said he was going in that direction to Elblag, about one and a half hours south of Gdansk. He gladly offered to give me a ride. It would take another 2 plus hours to get from Mlawa to Elblag.

My new ride turned out to be a 44-year-old regional judge from Elblag. He commutes between Warsaw and Elblag twice a week to teach law at the University of Warsaw, he said. He was a travel enthusiast who spoke some English. His name was Roman.

Roman spent a great part of the trip on cell phone talking to his secretary and others. When he was not on the phone, he was sort of quiet, perhaps because of his limited English and my lack of Polish. He managed enough English to say that he had traveled all over Europe and to parts of Asia. He said of all the countries visited, Italy was his favorite.

As we drove I knew it would be dark soon. I was thinking what I would do to reach Gdansk at night. Hitchhiking at night is not impossible, but not ideal. It just makes things tougher. But as we entered Elblag, Roman said he would drive me to the train station because it was dark and not good to be out on the road trying to thumb a ride. He didn’t give me an option as he pulled into the train station and bought me a train ticket to complete the rest of the journey to Gdansk. I was super surprised he would do that and of course thanked him. “No, it’s my pleasure” was his response. I was blown away by the generosity of the people I met out on the road, including a man who bought me a metro ticket in Warsaw because the machine would not take my credit card.

Hitchhiking, inherently a risky thing to do, actually can go the other way and show the goodness of people.

 

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